Court Opinion

ID: 9787402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:15:50.321777+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:55.581732
License: Public Domain

Justice KIDWELL,
dissenting.
Because I believe the courts, when administering equity, should leave parties as they find them when both parties have acted inequitably, I respectfully dissent.
While I agree with the long-standing maxim that when a contract is unenforceable or void as against public policy a court should leave the parties as it found them, I disagree as to the application of that maxim to these particular facts. I do not believe that the cases of Quiring v. Quiring, 130 Idaho 560, 944 P.2d 695 (1997) and Worlton v. Davis, 73 Idaho 217, 249 P.2d 810 (1952), cited for the proposition that the deed to the Youngs should be invalidated, are controlling in this ease. In Worlton, this Court refused to enforce the employee physician’s non-compete clause because the entire contract was held to be void as against public policy. Although the majority cites Worlton for the proposition that the parties should be left as though there were never a contract, that is not what the Court did in that case. The Court did not order the return of compensation paid to the physician for the 21 months during which he performed services, invalidate employer liability for actions of the employee physician, or remove any other vestiges of the non-offending provisions of the contract. The Court in Worlton refused to enforce the particular offending contract provision, as should be done in this case.
In Quiring, this Court held that the contract involved was unenforceable and void because the consideration the wife promised *321was illegal, as violating both a statute commanding all persons with knowledge of child sexual abuse to report the abuse to law enforcement and a statute making it a crime to obtain the transfer of property by extortion. The Court refused to honor the conveyance of the property for the purposes of determining the amount of the parties’ community assets. The narrow distinction to be drawn here is that the rule embodied in Quiring applies when the promised consideration is illegal to actually deliver or perform, whereas this ease turns on the improper motivations behind the giving of otherwise legal consideration. The Court should take a ‘hands-off approach and leave the parties as it finds them.