Court Opinion

ID: 9740417
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:35:06.405284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:18.200589
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice,
dissenting.
Wessels perhaps did not strictly comply with the terms of the option in his attempted exercise thereof, or perhaps the reason for that noncompliance was, as Justice Sand has indicated in his concurring opinion, the terms of the option itself. However, I believe Whetstone’s attempted repudiation of the option agreement and her obvious resistance to recognizing its validity in any manner is primarily responsible for the events that subsequently transpired. Ordinarily we attempt to construe a contract in a manner which will make it valid, legal, effective, and enforceable. Whetstone attempted to do the opposite and I believe her actions constitute an anticipatory breach which made Wessels’s strict compliance with the terms thereof unnecessary. Wes-sels’s mistake was in attempting to satisfy Whetstone when, in fact, she refused to recognize Wessels’s rights under the option agreement. I do not believe he should be punished nor Whetstone rewarded for that mistake.