Court Opinion

ID: 9853066
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:41:55.569811+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:40.426484
License: Public Domain

Fontron, J.,
dissenting: My colleagues concede that whether equity will decree specific performance of a contract rests within the sound judicial discretion of the court and depends on the particular facts of a given case. The judicial discretion thus to be exercised is lodged, in the first instance, in the trial court.
It has been our invariable rule that a trial court has wide discretion in exercising its equitable powers, and that its judgment will not be disturbed on appeal in the absence of an abuse of discretion. (Gillet v. Powell, 174 Kan. 88, 254 P. 2d 258, see, also, 1 Hatchers Kansas Digest (Rev. Ed.) Appeal & Error, §§444-465.)
In the present case the trial court concluded, on its own findings of fact, that it would be inequitable to grant specific performance of the contract which it had under consideration. In my opinion, it can not be said that the trial court, in coming to that conclusion, abused the discretion with which it was vested, in view of the facts which it found to exist. To so hold, as I view it, would simply substitute the judgment of this court for that of the trial court, and *705on facts from which differing conclusions might well be drawn.
In concluding it would be inequitable to grant specific performance of the contract in this case, the trial court relied largely on the decision in Bahney v. Gross, 135 Kan. 446, 10 P. 2d 84. Although this court now holds that Bahney is clearly distinguishable from the present case, the difference, in my judgment, is one of degree, not one of kind.
Performance on the part of the plaintiff, in Bahney, was alleged to be for about half the time which elapsed between the making of the contract and the promisors death. Here, the plaintiff performed his part of the contract for approximately seventy-five percent (75%) of the elapsed time. In Bahney, as in the present case, it was argued that the promisor had prevented full performance by leaving the home of the promisee. This contention was answered by the court when it said this fact would not entitle the promisee to specific performance as though he had fully performed, but would entitle him to file a claim against the estate for services.
Factors which the trial court may have had in mind in weighing the equities and in refusing specific performance might well have included the eight-year period during which the plaintiff did not perform the contract, no matter what the reason; that those eight years were the last and doubtless the most demanding years of his father’s existence; that during most of those years, the old gentleman was under guardianship, and his son made no effort to bring him home; that for the last four years the claimant, himself, was guardian but left his father in rest homes or in hospitals; that Mr. Roberts always paid his own way, and that his son paid all expenses for his father’s care from his father’s own funds; that plaintiff asked for and received a generous guardian’s fee; that plaintiff petitioned for probate of his father’s will and served as executor thereof nearly nine months, for which services, he has petitioned for allowance of a fee.
From these facts alone, all of which were before the trial court as indicated by its findings, I believe the court, without abusing its discretion, might well have considered specific performance to be inequitable. Whether the plaintiff would be entitled to recover for services on a quantum meruit basis is not before the court at this time.
I would affirm this judgment and, for that reason, I respectfully dissent.