Court Opinion

ID: 9646178
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 12:51:09.138454+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:34.884411
License: Public Domain

Shangraw, J.
Concurring in the result. I concur in the result on the basis that the timber cutting rights was a license personal to the mortgagors and not transferable to the defendant.
It is, however, my view that the language in the mortgage deed relating to such rights, and quoted in the opinion, is unambiguous, and that its interpretation through oral testimony was error.
The mere fact that parties have differed as to the meaning of the terms of a contract does not make it ambiguous. Otherwise, the mere assertion of ambiguity by a party would result in a ruling of ambiguity. This is not the law. It is the duty of the courts to construe contracts, not to make them for parties. Troy v. American Fidelity Co., 120 Vt. 410, 418, and cases cited.
Contracts are to be construed according to the sense and meaning of the terms which the parties have used, and if they are plain and unambiguous, their terms are to be taken in their plain, ordinary and popular sense. Abraham v. Insurance Company of North America, 117 Vt. 75, 79, 84 A.2d 670, 29 A.L.R. 2d 783; Johnson v. Hardware Mutual Casualty Co., 108 Vt. 269, 277, 187 A.788; Troy v. American Fidelity Co., supra, p. 418.
Further, as stated in In Re Robinson’s Will, 101 Vt. 464, 467, 144 *281Atl. 457, “It is the settled doctrine of our decisions that where the terms of a writing, whatever its character,, are plain and unambiguous, there is no room for construction and it is to be given effect according to its language.”
Moreover, having determined that the timber cutting rights were of a personal nature and not transferable by the mortgagors, it is of no consequence whether the mortgage provisions relating thereto are ambiguous or unambiguous.