Court Opinion

ID: 9703759
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:07:05.618508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:12:44.968075
License: Public Domain

DUNN, Retired Justice
(dissenting).
I would reverse the jury verdict.
The trial court erred in admitting oral statements modifying the listing agreement. Under South Dakota law, “a contract in writing may be altered by a contract in writing ... or by an executed oral agreement, and not otherwise.” SDCL 53-8-7. The original written listing agreement was not modified in writing and no offer to purchase was made under the original written listing. Further, this could not be an executed oral contract under the disputed oral revision of the listing agreement because the broker utterly failed to produce a purchaser ready, willing, and able to buy even under the purported revision.
The evidence indicates that the proposed buyer was without assets to make the purchase and had no commitment for credit that could by any stretch of the imagination make him able to buy the property under any terms. In fact, the offer was so nebulous and frivolous that it brought on the angry statement from the seller under which the majority would not maintain that the listing contract was repudiated. The *642seller never received an offer under the legal listing that he signed, so how could he repudiate it.
Under South Dakota law, the jury should not have been allowed to speculate as to the effect of a disputed telephone call modifying the written listing agreement, and this defendant should not be forced to pay a $96,000 commission to a broker for producing a buyer with phantom credit and no cash. The unconscionable result reached by this jury is the very reason that a growing number of states, including South Dakota, require that listing agreements be in writing and conform to the Statute of Frauds. ARSD 20:56:05:10.1.
I am authorized to state that Justice HENDERSON joins in this dissent.