Court Opinion

ID: 9704250
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:28:06.570065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:19.742034
License: Public Domain

MORGAN, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I concur in all issues decided by the majority opinion except Issue III dealing with the options contained in the contract.
The preliminary agreement between the parties called for a subsequent contract for sale. Mrs. Richard backed out on signing the second document. The action was to secure for the plaintiffs the benefit of their bargain to, in effect, require the contract for sale. This the trial court did by entering a judgment that set out the contract for sale. That judgment is before us to review.
In addition to the basic area already under development, the preliminary agreement, the unsigned contract for sale and the trial court’s judgment all provided for a series of options to give the purchaser the opportunity to buy some or all of the land adjacent to the initial development. Besides being tied to the development in the agreement, these additional tracts were integrated into the scheme of the entire development. A part of the investment in the basic tract would inure to the benefit of the adjoining tracts.
In their complaint, plaintiffs did not ask the trial court to enforce their options by way of specific performance. They instead asked the court to “grant” their options under the agreement. While ineptly worded, I take this to mean that they were requesting the trial court specifically enforce the basic agreement so that they would be granted the opportunity to exercise their options in the future. It should be noted that the majority opinion obligates plaintiffs to immediately take the lots and acreage delineated under these options, which increases plaintiffs’ liability under the contracts for deed by approximately $750,000.
The majority opinion relies upon 71 Am. Jur.2d Specific Performance § 144 for the proposition that a party who institutes suit in specific performance of an option is deemed to have exercised the option, thus providing the required mutuality of remedy necessary to enforce the option. As I read §§ 142-146, inclusive, the authors are discussing the exercise of options and the enforcement of the contract resulting therefrom. None of the cases cited by the majority deal with a situation wherein the options were contained as part of a larger contract. Normally, when instituting specific performance of an option agreement, a party wants to exercise the option. It is not clear here that plaintiffs wanted to become obligated and exercise their options; rather, they were seeking specific performance of the agreement to enter into a contract for deed.
Here, the trial court ordered specific performance of the contract. That included reinstituting the options, so that plaintiffs could elect to exercise them in the future. I believe this was correct.
[I]f specific performance is ordered, the decree should nearly as possible require *530performance in accordance with the terms of the contract.... It does not follow, however, that a court of equity is required to enforce the contract completely, or not at all. Where it is possible to bring about substantial justice by adjusting the equities between the parties, a court of equity can grant relief.
Ellison v. Ventura Port Dist., 80 Cal.App.3d 574, 583, 145 Cal.Rptr. 665, 670 (1978). I believe the question of the enforcement of the options is best left to another day. With all other aspects of the majority opinion I concur.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice FOSHEIM joins in this concurrence in part and dissent in part.