Court Opinion

ID: 9770664
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:18:35.271814+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:19.797537
License: Public Domain

*304EAGER, Judge
(dissenting).
This litigation has had a long and tedious history and I regret the necessity of a dissent. An opinion was filed here on September 9, 1963, but thereafter a rehearing was granted. I concurred in that order, although I wrote the original opinion.
The parties seemingly agree that this is basically a law action, although counsel for plaintiffs insist that it is “sui generis”; that insistence is true, so far as it goes, but a declaratory judgment action must still sound either in law, or equity, or both.
The principal opinion, in dealing with the abhorrence of forfeitures, relies largely upon equity cases. Bogad v. Wachter, 365 Mo. 426, 283 S.W.2d 609; Plymouth Securities Company v. Johnson, Mo., 335 S.W.2d 142; Cox v. Fisher, Mo., 322 S.W.2d 910. The statement has often been made that “equity abhors a forfeiture.” On the law side the more or less equivalent question usually arises in suits for damages for breach of contract where the recovery of liquidated damages or of a penalty is sought. There it has been held that the courts will not enforce a provision for the recovery of a penalty or of punitive damages, but that they will enforce provisions for liquidated damages if the amount fixed is proportionate to the amount of damage reasonably to be contemplated. Wilt v. Waterfield, Mo., 273 S.W.2d 290; Restatement of Contracts, § 339, and comment; Buchanan v. Louisiana Purchase Exposition Co., 245 Mo. 337, 149 S.W. 26, 29; Abrams v. St. Louis Co. Library Dist. Bd., 364 Mo. 25, 258 S.W.2d 672, 675. But all such authorities recognize that if the contract provisions for damages are not enforceable, then the party against whom the default has been committed is entitled to such damages as he has actually suffered. Thus, in Wilt, supra, the Court said: “ Where the sum named in a contract to be paid in a breach is held to be a penalty and not liquidated damages, the amount of recovery is only the actual damages sustained.’ 25 C.J.S., Damages, § 116b, p. 704.”
The writer of the principal opinion has found that Mr. Norman was in default in several respects in his performance under this contract. As the writer of the original opinion, I so found, and in somewhat more detail. At this point I add the following factual comments from my construction of the record, all of which bear upon the question of damages. The defendants had contributed 58 acres to this “pool” of land, in addition to the 32 acres which they gave to the School District as a part of the consideration for this contract; Mr. Norman contributed 19.14 acres; the contract was dated December 2, 1954, and the lots which are now in question have been permitted to lie idle ever since, while surrounding areas have been substantially developed; on February 2, 1959, Mr. Norman specifically refused to do anything more under the contract. It is obvious that this Court cannot intelligently determine whether defendants have been damaged by Norman’s breach and, if so, by how much. We have been informed by plaintiffs’ counsel, strictly outside the record, of various subsequent developments and changes in the status of the property.
It adds nothing to say that Norman acquired a “vested” interest. If he did, he acquired it subject to the terms of the contract, so we are right back where we started, with the necessity of applying the applicable rules to the contract itself.
I am not fully convinced that the provision for the reconveyance of the unsold lots to defendants was wholly out of proportion to the damages to be anticipated, as the Court has now found. This should have been considered in the light of all the circumstances, including the very substantial benefits given ttp by the defendants and those acquired by Norman. However, in order to work toward some end to this tedious and perhaps unnecessary litigation, I shall concur in the holding that it constituted a penalty. But that holding does not end the difficulty. The principal opinion totally ignores the fact that defendants are entitled to a hearing and finding on the *305question of damages. The trial court found that there was no breach, and therefore no damages would follow. It ordered a partition and a division of the money on hand. This Court independently finds a breach (of which I have no question), ignores the question of damage suffered from the breach, and orders a partition and distribution as did the trial court upon a directly opposite finding.
I would reverse the judgment and remand the case for a full hearing on the question of damages, the ultimate judgment to conform to the principles and findings otherwise announced in the opinion.