Court Opinion

ID: 9450469
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:49:03.525865+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:20.401933
License: Public Domain

SETH, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent from the conclusion reached by the majority that the lease agreement in paragraph 4-1 contains a provision governing the extent to which the trucks and trailers are to be used.
Paragraph 4-1, which appears among a series of specific requirements relating to the method of use, states that the lessee will use and operate the units in the normal and ordinary conduct of its business. The appellant urges that this is the provision prescribing the extent of use. This argument requires a reference to lessee’s business for a measure or standard. This would not be difficult were it not for other lease provisions which contemplate that the units be used by any other firm or individual. Thus it is not lessee’s business which is the measure, but that of all these other possible users also. The argument thus assumes that the parties agreed to use as a standard the quantity of use by these unknown assignees or sublessees. The lease provides a completely unrestricted power in the lessee to so sublease or “to assign this Agreement or any Interest therein.” *325This right destroys the argument that lessee’s business is the measure of use and leaves no standard or measure upon which a court can say the parties agreed. It appears that the lease was once assigned, the assignee went bankrupt, and it was assigned back. Thus the provision relating to assignment was used and recognized by the parties.
The same can of course be said as to the use of the same portion of paragraph 4-1 as a standard for the method of use. Here again the method of use related to lessee’s business by such a general provision, in the face of the free right to assign and sublease, has no meaning. The remaining provisions as to the methods of use are specific and would apply to any user.
Thus by assignment the method and extent of use can change without limit depending upon the nature of the assignee’s or sublessee’s business, and this leaves the court without any measure or standard to determine damages in the event of a breach.
The lease is of some twelve pages in length with a five page schedule attached. It apparently was the result of negotiations and redrafting. There is in schedule A a form with a column for insertion of a fixed rental and one for a mileage rental. The fixed rental column contains zeros while the mileage rental is set on a sliding scale related to the amount of use. Thus in the portion of the lease where provisions as to the amount of use should appear there are none and in my opinion there are none elsewhere in the lease.
Both parties urge that the contract is not ambiguous, and urge construction of the terms it contains to reach a result. There is no contention advanced that a provision was inadvertently omitted. The action was brought on the express terms of the lease and so defended. Thus they say in effect that the contract is complete if properly construed, hence there is no room for implication by law to provide missing provisions.
I would affirm the judgment.