Court Opinion

ID: 9573066
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:47:28.736584+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:36:43.455451
License: Public Domain

HATHAWAY, Judge,
dissenting.
At the heart of this problem lies the contractual agreement between Estes and the City of Tucson. No matter what Estes/Evergreen/Chase and Equivest decide among themselves, the development standards required by Tucson will have to be met. Someone will have to build the roads.
Even though the trial court and the majority of this court find that Estes and Equivest came to a “meeting of the minds” on the proposed modification to the option agreements, I cannot agree, nor did Estes as the offeror of the modification. Estes had the right to rescind the agreements, at its sole discretion, based upon Chase’s only conditional acceptance of the agreements. It is not hard to imagine a scenario in which Equivest, as Estes’ successor-in-interest and developer of the property, builds the roads required by Tucson and then seeks indemnification from Estes, claiming under the modification that its predecessor-in-interest agreed it would not have to build the roads. Why else would Equivest want Estes to promise not to require Equi-vest to be responsible for the roads?
*624Even if this court proclaims that a valid modification existed between the parties, the agreements as revised will have to be resubmitted for Chase’s approval, which will, if conditional, in turn be rescindable by Estes at its sole discretion, thus making this whole discussion a mere bagatelle.