Court Opinion

ID: 9586678
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:13:57.259428+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:47.319048
License: Public Domain

Bell, Judge,
concurring specially. While I am in agreement with the reasoning and the decision reached in the majority opinion as delivered for the court by Judge Nichols, it is my thought that further clarification on one major point at issue is essential in order to render the opinion complete. This further clarification is required, I think, as to the question whether the so-called amendment of 1943 to the purported lease caused an interest to vest in Southern Airways as Chief Judge Felton in his dissent reasons that it did. This feature of the case is most important, for clearly, in the absence of vesting of interest at that point, the purported lease was based upon a contingency which might not occur within 21 years, and therefore it was utterly void.
Under the lease of the airport by the U. S. Government, the *694Government had the option to renew the lease at its discretion as long as a national defense emergency continued to exist as determined by the President of the United States. It is obvious, then, that the original purported lease did not vest, and that the completion as required in the contract did not take place prior to the taking of the property by the U. S. Government. Therefore, under the. original document, there could never have been a vested interest created, as its vesting was contingent upon an uncertain event, and that uncertain event could take place more than 21 years later. Therefore this purported lease would be void ab initio. The so-called amendment made in 1943 seems to have been an attempt to create a vested interest in the present, with the actual interest coming to the named lessee at a future date. At the time of this so-called amendment, the lessee could not take possession, no possessory interest at that time could be given by the named lessor, and the time at which the possession could be taken by the proposed lessee was left to be at some uncertain future time. This time could have been more than 21 years, and irrespective of what the parties intended to do, the future interest was a contingent one and therefore was void under the rule against perpetuities. This leaves the contract as amended subject to the same (the original) defect.
Further, agreeing that the contract of 1943 by its terms stated certain amendments or modifications to the original contract, what was the effect of these amendments? It merely amended a contract which under law was void ab initio since the original agreement violates this State’s rule against perpetuities. A contract void because it lacks the necessary legal essentials, may be brought to life by adding it to another which furnishes the required legality. But a contract void as falling within the rule against perpetuities, continues and remains void when amendments are attempted which leave in the contract the objectionable contingent remainder. Obviously, under this situation there could have been no vesting of an interest at this particular time. The question here is answered, as it is usually in questions of this kind, by determining whether or not an interest is vested at a particular time. Since no vested interest became established the lease must be held to be void. Suffice it to add *695that neither the payment nor the acceptance of money under an utterly void contract can have the effect of breathing legality into it.
I am authorized to say that Judge Townsend joins with me in concurring specially with the majority opinion.