Court Opinion

ID: 9520611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:45:17.884092+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:46:32.041424
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE LINDBERG, dissenting: I am compelled to disagree with the respected trial court and my colleagues in the majority. I believe the parties, the trial court and the majority have proceeded far deeper into the intricacies of contract law than the facts of this cause permit. I do not believe questions of reasonableness or good faith are involved where the issue is whether the seller accepted and assented to the contract. The cases relied upon by the trial court are inapposite. In Honkomp v. Dixon (1981), 97 Ill. App. 3d 476, 422 N.E.2d 949, the contract specifically used the word “reasonable” to establish the standard of conduct of the buyer in obtaining a mortgage. Not so here. Kovacs v. Krol (1944), 385 Ill. 593, 53 N.E.2d 456, is similarly unavailing where the buyer’s inability to perform was the direct result of the failure of the seller to procure a title report which was an expressly imposed obligation of the seller. Both cases are distinguishable from the case at bar where the seller’s acceptance was conditional, and no standards were imposed by the contract on his exercise of his right to accept or reject. The addendum to the contract “Subject to seller approving buyer’s credit report, oral on March 24, 1981, written when ready” was indisputably a condition to the seller’s acceptance of the buyer’s offer. It is an elementary rule of contract law that a condition precedent must be performed before contractual liability arises. (Godare v. Sterling Steel Casting Co. (1981), 103 Ill. App. 3d 46, 430 N.E.2d 620, and cases cited therein.) The seller’s acceptance of the offer must be unequivocal. (Milani v. Proesel (1958), 15 Ill. 2d 423.) The seller never approved the buyer’s credit report, and it is not suggested by the parties or the trial court that the seller performed this necessary act. Nor is it urged that his silence between March 23 and May 14 (except when he was solicited by the buyer two or three times in April and May) constituted an acceptance. Further, the requirement of seller’s approval of buyer’s credit report did not limit the time which the seller had to accept or reject the credit report. Where no time period for acceptance is stated the offeree has a reasonable time within which to accept. (See generally 17 Am. Jur. 2d Contracts sec. 56 (1964).) Buyer testified he understood he was to present seller a credit report and a letter from the bank approving a potential loan. Buyer also acknowledged that three or four weeks after March 23 or March 27 he approached the seller to ascertain the reason for the delay. According to the buyer, seller asked for more evidence of buyer’s “financial capabilities,” at which time buyer showed seller his corporate tax return for 1979, his 1980 personal income tax return and he prepared a financial statement for the previous 28 months. Thus, it appears that the parties understood that seller’s approval of buyer’s credit report was not limited to the report of the credit bureau obtained March 27 but embraced other evidence. This included a bank loan approval, personal and corporate income tax returns, and a financial statement. The tax returns and financial statement were not presented to seller until three or four weeks after March 23 or March 27. Buyer’s testimony established that the initial credit report had not satisfied seller and buyer provided the further information referred to. It is submitted that this is hardly evidence of seller’s bad faith as concluded by the majority. More importantly it demonstrates that the delay between March 27, the date the seller received the credit report, and May 14 was not unreasonable. The seller continued to try to satisfy himself of buyer’s credit for several weeks after March 27, perhaps as many as four weeks, according to the buyer. In view of the fact that nowhere in the contract is there a 30-day provision relating to acceptance, and the fact that the seller was providing the bulk of the financing of the purchase and the fact that the closing was not to occur until September 1, 1981, the additional three weeks between late April and May 14 was not an unreasonable amount of time for the seller to consider his decision to accept or reject the contract. I conclude, contrary to the conclusions of the trial court, that there was no 30-day period for acceptance or rejection of the contract; seller had a reasonable time to accept or reject the buyer’s offer and made a timely rejection on the 14th; and, that neither the contract nor case law imposed upon the seller a standard of reasonableness in accepting or rejecting the contract. As to an implied agreement in every contract that the parties act in good faith I simply respond that there was no contract. But, also, the majority’s conclusion that the seller lacked good faith by renegotiating other terms of the contract is not supported by the evidence. The buyer approached the seller and offered more documents regarding his “financial capabilities.” During these meetings initiated by the buyer, seller indicated he might accept the contract at the original asking price of $135,000 and a half to one percent increase in the interest rate. Even if there was a contract, I would not hold that such discussions, where the seller has never indicated satisfaction with the buyer’s credit, constitute bad faith. I would reverse the judgment of the circuit court of Lee County.