Court Opinion

ID: 9713528
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:16:53.295173+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:19.150722
License: Public Domain

MORGAN, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur specially because I believe that there is substance in Chief Justice Krivo-sha’s excellent opinion in Occidental Savings & Loan Assn. v. Venco, 206 Neb. 469, 293 N.W.2d 843 (1980), which should be emphasized.
In an indepth study of the argument that due-on-sale clauses are void as restraints on alienation, the opinion examines the California line of authority on which appellant relies and to which the majority opinion refers, dwelling at length on the Wellen-kamp decision. As the Chief Justice noted:
A more interesting aspect of the Wellen-kamp decision is the basis upon which the court reached its conclusion. Relatively few legal principles are relied upon as authority. The decision is based primarily on considerations of social need and the assumed effect of a “due-on-sale” clause in the market place. The rights and needs of the seller, as seen by the court, are detailed and balanced against the rights and needs of the lender, as seen by the court. The court concludes that the rights and needs of the seller outweigh those of the lender, notwithstanding the fact that the parties have freely entered into a contract to the contrary.
Occidental Savings & Loan Assn., 293 N.W.2d at 847. The opinion then goes on to hold, as pointed out in the majority opinion here, that “[t]he restraint, if any, in this case does not attach itself to the title and the conveyance thereof but rather to the mortgage and the assumption thereof. The lender never promised the seller that another could assume the mortgage; as a matter of fact, it told the seller the contrary.” Id., 293 N.W.2d at 848.
The key point in the Occidental opinion follows, to-wit “[a] ‘due-on-sale’ clause is a form of an acceleration clause and, as such, should be subject to the same rules as other acceleration clauses, including the protection of equitable defenses.” Id., 293 N.W.2d at 849. As in Nebraska, this court has said: “[b]y the great weight of authority the courts hold that a court of equity has the power to relieve a mortgagor from the effect of the acceleration clause when the default was the result of some inequitable conduct of the mortgagee. . . . Also many courts have relieved the mortgagor against a default which is unintentional, technical and without prejudice.... ” Larson v. Western Underwriters, 77 S.D. 157, 161-62, 87 N.W.2d 883, 886 (1958) (citations omitted).
Absent appellant’s pursuit and proof of any of the above equitable defenses, I, too, join in affirming the trial court’s decision.