Court Opinion

ID: 9548881
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:10:03.048683+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:33.273681
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(dissenting).
On June 14, 1971, the Eckards, as buyers, and Gale G. Smith, as seller, executed a filled-in printed form Residential Rental Agreement. Gale’s co-defendant wife, Joy T. Smith, was not signatory thereto. The agreement contained certain salient provisions around which this litigation revolves:
It was for one year, at $375.00 per month. It provided that “Lessor hereby agrees to grant lessee (Cecil Eckard) first option to buy said duplex, single unit or both if available at termination of lease period. The sale price shall be (78,900.00) plus carpets, drapery & landscaping costs. . The entire yrs. lease payment will be credited to sale price if lessee'purchases said duplex.”
The Eckards paid the entire year’s rental in advance. It seems obvious that they did this to assure an opportunity to purchase the property, since there is no apparent reason why they should forego interest on $4,500.00 when under the terms of the lease, without the option, they could have paid out in monthly installments of $375.00. The trial court, under the evidence, found a binding contract and liability to convey under its terms and the right effectively to exercise the option. The trial court in his summation more or less chided the male defendant, who had been in the contracting business for nigh onto a quarter century, for his attempt to beg off on a theory that his wife, not having signed the agreement thus liberated him from his promise, — even though the evidence is clear by her testimony and that of others that she freely and repeatedly consented and agreed to the unorthodox business dealing of signing the document without joining his joint tenant wife. The findings of the trial court were supported by substantial admissible evidence, and citation of authority to conclude that his findings should be honored would serve no useful purpose.
Everything said in the main opinion by way of general principle may be true, but the course of conduct of the principals in this litigation fully justifies the judgment of the trial court.
Apart from the arguments urged in the main opinion, and assuming, arguendo, that Mrs. Smith should not be a subject to specific performance, there is no reason that Mr. Smith should be spared or why he should not be required to pay dearly in damages if, by concealing himself behind his wife’s robes, he should force her and the Eckards to become perhaps unwilling co-owners.
Also, apart from everything else that has been said above, the Smiths compounded confusion by completing and making fait accompli the transaction under the terms claimed for by the Eckards, for which specific performance was adjudged by the trial court when, on January 3, 1974, a whole week before they filed their Notice of Appeal on January 10, 1974, they both, Gale G. Smith and Joy T. Smith, executed (and had their signatures notarized on said date) a Warranty Deed for “One-half ½ of a duplex described as follows: Beginning . . . thence . . . to a point on the Centerline of a party wall . thence ... to the point of beginning.” This Warranty Deed was duly de*664livered to the Eckards and accepted by them in exchange for a certified check for $37,744.00, accepted and endorsed by both defendants, which amount if doubled, would equal $75,488.00. Adding one half (½) of the $4,500.00 advance payment, which would be $2,250.00 to the $75,488.00, what do you get except $78,738.00,- — which is almost exactly the stipulated price of $78,900.00 for the duplex found in the Residential Rental Agreement ? These figures and the findings of the court belie the statement of the main opinion that “The trial court enforced a contract which the parties never made,” — although the quoted statement would be true as to Mrs. Smith only, — -if it further be assumed that she was not bound by her representations as to satisfaction in the terms of the agreement, —which the trial court, however, did not assume at all. It would appear that by their actions the Smiths eliminated any defense of estoppel; that on the contrary, they waived it and completely ratified the terms asserted by the Eckards, which were enforced by the court almost exactly as finally consummated. No argument could be urged that all this was not a part of the record, because the defendants put it in the record, — before they appealed. (Emphasis added.)
It would be a strange conclusion both in the area of procedure and of administering equity, if people, after having complied with the very terms of a judgment entered against them could consummate the transaction which the court had found to be the fact, but thereafter, by the simple device of filing a timely notice of appeal could call for and claim a brand new ball game. It is obvious that this whole case was and is moot, — an unorthodox and abortive attempt to invoke the jurisdiction and consume, without merit, the time of the courts. The trial court should be affirmed with costs to the Eckards.
TUCKETT, J., concurs in the views ex-' pressed in the dissenting opinion of HEN-RIOD, J.