Court Opinion

ID: 9457426
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:21:38.877284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:20.747143
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge:
In a petition for rehearing, Chrysler, defendant below and appellant here, asserts that we misconstrued and erred in failing to follow Sisco v. Rotenberg, Fla. 1958, 104 So.2d 365, in our former opinion herein.
In Sisco v. Rotenberg, supra, Sisco, whom we shall hereinafter refer to as the lessor, entered into a lease of certain real estate situated in Florida with Rotenberg, whom we shall hereinafter refer to as the lessee, for a base term of five years.
The last two paragraphs of the lease provided:
“The Lessor agrees, during the tenure of this Lease, to sell to the Lessee, the foregoing described real estate with appurtenances thereto appertaining, for a cash purchase price of Twenty Thousand Dollars ($20,000.-00).
“It Is Agreed that the Lessee shall have an option to renew this Lease for a period of five (5) years on the same terms and conditions providing the said Lessee makes this request in writing to the Lessor on or before October 2nd, 1954.” 1
Before October 2, 1954, and during the base term of the lease, the lessee duly exercised his option to extend the lease for five years. During the first year of the renewal in the extension period of the lease, the lessee duly notified the lessor of his election to purchase. The lessor refused to convey and the lessee brought a suit for specific performance. From a decree for specific performance, the lessor appealed.
The general rule, supported by the weight of authority, is that where a lease confers on the lessee an option to purchase the property at any time during the term of the lease, and the lease is thereafter extended in accordance with its terms, the option to purchase is also extended for the period of the extended *435term 2 absent provisions in the lease indicating a contrary intention.3
The lessor and appellant in Sisco admitted such was the general rule, but contended there was authority to the contrary, which Florida was free to adopt. (See opinion in Sisco, at page 368 of 104 So.2d.) He cited no decisions in support of his contention.
The English decisions are contrary to the general rule set forth, supra, and are based on the premise that the lease and option to purchase, although incorporated in the same instrument, are separate contracts and an extension of the former does not extend the latter.4 The decisions of a small number of American states are also contrary to such general rule.5
We do not understand that the lessor in Sisco contended that the language of the lease there involved took that case outside of the general rule, but rather urged the court to adopt the minority view followed in England and m some American states that the lease and option to purchase constituted two separate contracts and that an extension of the former did not operate to extend the latter.6
We shall assume, since counsel have cited no authority to the contrary and we have found none, that the general rule applicable to options to purchase, stated supra, also applies to options to terminate, absent provisions in the lease indicating a contrary intent.
It is settled law that the cardinal rule in the construction of contracts, including leases, is that the court shall endeavor to ascertain and give effect to the mutual intention of the parties, and a general rule which would effect a result contrary to the mutual intention of the parties must give way to such primary or cardinal rule.7
We think it clear from paragraph 6 of the lease in the instant case, set out *436in our former opinion at pages 431 and 432, that the parties intended thereby to fix their respective rights and obligations with respect to the 60-month term, including the right of termination; and that the phrase “this lease” as used in that part of the termination provision in paragraph 6, reading “terminate this lease” (italics ours) meant the original 60-month lease and gave the lessee no right to terminate during the two-year renewal terms of the lease.
This we think is manifest by the fact that when the parties intended to give an option or a right applicable during a renewal period, they used the phrase “this lease, or any extension or renewal thereof.” See paragraph 26 of lease, quoted on page 433 of our former opinion, where the parties used the phrase “this lease, or any extension or renewal thereof,” with respect to another option granted the Lessee, and also used the same phrase with respect to a right given to the Lessor.
Moreover, it is a well settled rule of construction that the same word or phrase used in different provisions or parts of a contract will be presumed, in the absence of language plainly indicating the contrary, to have been used in the same sense throughout the contract.8 Here, it is perfectly clear that when the parties to the lease involved in the instant case used the phrase “this lease” in paragraph 26 thereof, they referred to the original lease for 60 months.
And it is further a primary rule of construction that the intention of the parties shall be determined, not from separate provisions of the contract, but from a consideration of the entire contract.9
Moreover, it is plain from the language of paragraph 6 of the lease involved in the instant case that the par*437ties intended that the right to terminate the base term should not arise until two years of that term had expired. The provision for five renewal terms of two years each, in effect, gave the lessee the same right to end his tenancy at the end of any two years of occupancy, without penalty, by failing to exercise his right to extend the lease for another or succeeding two-year term, after the end of a term, up to and during the fourth two-year term.
The petition for rehearing is denied.
ON PETITION FOR REHEARING AND PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
PER CURIAM:
Except insofar as covered by the supplemental opinion the Petition for Rehearing is denied and no member of this panel nor Judge in regular active service on the Court having requested that the Court be polled on rehearing en banc, (Rule 35 Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure; Local Fifth Circuit Rule 12) the Petition for Rehearing En Banc is denied. The application to certify this case to the Supreme Court of Florida is likewise denied.

. The foregoing two paragraphs are the only provisions of the lease involved in Sisco, quoted or otherwise set forth in the opinion of the court in that case.

. 49 Am.Jur.2cl, Landlord and Tenant, § 382, p. 399;
Annotations: 37 A.L.R. at p. 1245; 163 A.L.R. at p. 712; 15 A.L.R.3d at pp. 474, 475, 476; Contra: 15 A.L.R.3d at pp. 482, 483, 484.

. See Schaeffer v. Bilger, 186 Md. 1, 4, 45 A.2d 775, 777, 163 A.L.R. 706, where the court, after reviewing many decisions, at page 708 said:
“The question whether an option to purchase contained in a lease can be exercised by a tenant during an additional term provided for in the lease, has been productive of much difficulty and has produced many decisions which cannot be reconciled. It seems to be generally agreed that it depends upon the intention of the parties to be gathered from the lease itself. * * * ” ((Italics ours.) See also, Denver Plastics, Inc. v. Snyder, 160 Colo. 232, 416 P.2d 370, 15 A.L.R.3d 465;
Carter v. Frakes, 303 Ky. 244, 197 S.W.2d 436, 438;
(See, however, Lexington Flying Service, Inc. v. Anderson’s Exr., Ky., 239 S.W.2d 945) ;
49 Am.Jur.2d, Landlord and Tenant, at pages 400, 406;
See also, cited in note 7 hereof, infra.

. Sherwood v. Tucker, English Court of Appeal (1924) 2 Ch. 440, 37 A.L.R. 1239; Batchelor v. Murphy, English Court of Appeal (1924) W.N. 207, 68 Sol.Jo. 738, 40 Times L.R. 642, 37 A.L.R. 1240.

. Parker v. Lewis, 267 Pa. 382, 110 A. 79; Pettit v. Tourison (1925) 283 Pa. 529, 129 A. 587, 39 A.L.R. 1106; Andreula v. Slovak Gymnastic Union So-kol Assembly No. 223, 140 N.J.Eq. 171, 53 A.2d 191, 193 ; Annotation, 15 A.L.R.3d 483, 484.

. Counsel for the lessor in Sisco did argue that because of the steady advance of land values in Florida, “ * * * She (the lessor) * * * surely did not intend to be bound by the terms of her lease to a fixed price over a large number of years. * * * ” The court held that the lease was unambiguous and disposed of such contention of counsel, supra, by saying:
“ * * * We note that the record is silent as to what the market value of the subject realty was, or is, and it is our opinion that, as contended by the plaintiff, the intention of the parties is to be obtained from the unambiguous terms of the contract and not by what may have existed in the minds of the parties but but was not reflected in the written lease. * * *»

. In St. Lucie County Bank & Trust Co. v. Aylin, 94 Fla. 528, 114 So. 438, 441, the Supreme Court of Florida quoted with *436approval from Gillet v. Bank of America, 160 N.Y. 549, 55 N.E. 292, the following:
“ ‘ * * * Indeed, the great object, and practically the only foundation, of rules for the construction of contracts, is to arrive at the intention of the parties. This is a most conspicuous and far-reaching rule, * * ” See Underwood v. Underwood, Fla., 64 So.2d 281, where St. Lucie County Bank & Trust Co. v. Aylin, supra, was quoted with approval. See also, Milwaukee Mechanics Ins. Co. v. Davis, 5 Cir., 198 F.2d 441, 444, where the court quoted with approval from New York Life Ins. Co. v. Bab-cock, 104 Ga. 67, 30 S.E. 273, 275, as follows:
“ ‘The fundamental question to be determined in the legal construction of all contracts is, what was the real intention of the parties?’ ” ;
National Hotel, Inc. v. Koretzky, Fla., 96 So.2d 774, 776; See also, Schaeffer v. Bilger, 186 Md. 1, 45 A.2d 775, 777, 163 A.L.R. 706, where the court said:
“The question whether an option to purchase contained in a lease can be exercised by a tenant during an additional term provided for in the lease, has been productive of much difficulty, and has produced many decisions which cannot be reconciled. It seems to be generally agreed that it depends upon the intention of the parties to be gathered from the lease itself. * * * ”
The principle is stated in 17A C.J.S. Contracts § 295, p. 45, as follows:
“The fundamental, basic, primary, ultimate, or paramount question to be determined in the legal construction of all contracts is what the real intention of the parties was. * * * ” See also, cases cited in our former opinion, page 432, notes 3 and 4.

. Jefferson Lake Sulphur Company v. United States, D.C.E.D.La., 207 F.Supp. 124, 126;
Midland Valley R. Co. v. Railway Express Agency, 10 Cir., 105 F.2d 201, 203;
Barnes v. Townley, Okl., 448 P.2d 468, 471;
Bakery & Confectionery Workers’ International Union, Local No. 492 v. National Biscuit Co., 3 Cir., 177 F.2d 684, 687;
Holter v. National Union Fire Ins. Co. of Pittsburgh, Pa., 1 Wash.App. 46, 459 P.2d61, 64;
Pringle v. Wilson, 156 Cal. 313, 104 P. 316, 319.

. City of Orlando v. Murphy, 5 Cir., 84 F.2d 531, 534;
Union Cent. Life Ins. Co. v. Neuhoff, 157 Fla. 9, 24 So.2d 906, 907;
Florida Power Corporation v. City of Tallahassee, 154 Fla. 638, 18 So.2d 671, 674.