Court Opinion

ID: 9856241
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:42:32.10488+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:34:05.567544
License: Public Domain

Russell, Judge,
Dissenting. I disagree with the ruling in Division 2 only. “Courts do not make contracts for parties, but enforce such legal contracts as parties make, when called on so to do.” Strickler & Co. v. Tinkham, 35 Ga. 176, 180. “It is unquestionably the duty of courts to enforce contracts and protect the rights of parties arising from them. Upon sufficient legal or equitable grounds, they may also relieve parties from them; but they have no power to make them for parties, and, when deliberately made, to modify or change them in any material respect.” Tumlin v. Vanhorn, 77 Ga. 315, 320 (3 SE 264). See also Delaware Ins. Co. v. Pennsylvania Fire Ins. Co., 126 Ga. 380, 385 (55 SE 330, 7 AC 1134).
A contract containing an obligation to perform and a covenant not to sue at the same time requires enforcement of the covenant not to sue. Martin v. Monroe, 107 Ga. 330, 333 (33 SE 62); Arnold v. Johnston, 84 Ga. App. 138 (65 SE2d 707); Jones v. Darling, 94 Ga. App. 641 (95 SE2d 709).
I do not find paragraph 8 ambiguous when construed with paragraph 7. I disagree with the statement in the majority opinion that there are only two kinds of compensation dealt with in the contract. There are actually three kinds. Paragraph 7 assures McIntyre, in case of severance, of receiving “the proportionate amount of his stipulated salary then due, computed *816on a monthly basis.” The remaining compensations are (1) salary not yet earned for the remainder of the year, and (2) bonus. Paragraph 8 contains a covenant not to sue as to both of these amounts. The wording of paragraph 8, “the provisions made herein, including bonus,” convinces me that the parties were thinking in the plural and not in the singular. Otherwise they would have said “the provision for bonus” or something like that. If it be conceded that paragraph 8 is unambiguous in referring to bonus and something else, it refers to bonus and unearned salary, the compensation which is not dealt with in paragraph 7 referring to earned salary. The covenant not to sue goes to both these items.1 It was a most unusual contract from McIntyre’s standpoint, but I assume that he was laboring under no disabilities and is bound by his commitment. He was a man capable of earning $1,000 a month as an assistant to a president. His petition alleges a breach of contract, but alleges no facts which would allow him to escape the effect of his covenant not to sue in the event of such breach. In this case I fear that the law is on one side and justice and equity on the other, but I am of the opinion that we should follow the law.
I am authorized to say that Carlisle, P. J., Bell and Hall, JJ., join me in this dissent.

Covenant not to sue is set out in majority opinion.