Court Opinion

ID: 9629336
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:40:51.538989+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:17.997578
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(concurring in the result).
I concur in the result.
It is obvious from the record that defendants had changed their minds between the time they signed the uniform real estate contract to sell part of the tract, and the time plaintiff exercised the option. It is significant that the option here was not quite the conventional one ordinarily used. It was incorporated in the contract that sold part of the property, and after considerable discussion wherein defendants appeared to be agreeable to a $23,500 sale for the other part of the property, crystallized then and there, except that the plaintiff felt and said at that time that he did not desire to bite off more than he could chew. I think the evidence reasonably was convincing that had the plaintiff had $23,500 at that time there would have been a ready deal and no appeal to this court. It is also significant that in the very contract containing the *145option, the portion of the tract sold was on a monthly 2i/¿-year payment plan, without interest. It would seem clear, therefore, that the defendants were not so interested in interest at that time as the author of the dissent is now in their behalf. The monologue about interest in the dissent is but academic and bookkeepish, since, under the decree of the lower court, with which plaintiff is willing to comply, defendants would get $23,500, which, if put out at the dissent’s going rate of 8%, could he invested with an 8% profit on the defendants’ equity in the property, a 2j£% profit on one of the mortgages and 2% profit on the other, about which the dissent dwells so considerably.
The defendants did not take any position to the effect that the option provision was void for uncertainty or for any other reason, since they indulged in negotiations with plaintiff in extenso, ad absurdum, when they unreasonably demanded the $23,-500, to which they had agreed, plus two years occupancy obviously worth at least $4,000, plus the use of the $23,500 for two years, interest free, which according to the dissent’s 8% going rate, would amount to about another $4,000, — which obviously is tantamount to an increase in the purchase price of $8,000, — which obviously is a 34% increase, — which obviously is a ridiculous, unreasonable and unthinkable demand under the guise of an effort at negotiation.
I have no quarrel with the general principles and authorities cited in the dissent, —only in their applicability here, both on principle and factual differences.
If equity cannot step into a case with circumstances like those existing here, then a plague on the institution of equity whose professed purpose is to carry out the intentions of the parties, which are unavailable in the ordinary court of law.
I think that Pitcher v. Lauritzen correctly stated the law, — or the equity, if you please, — in specific performance situations, but I do not think that it is apropos under the circumstances of this case. I should prefer to look at the instant case in the light of the pronouncements of McNeil v. McNeil, 61 Utah 141, 211 P. 988 (1922) ; Johnson v. Jones, 109 Utah 92, 93, 164 P.2d 893 (1946); and Colmenero v. Babers, 80 Ariz. 339, 297 P.2d 927 (1956), which see.