Court Opinion

ID: 9493465
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:09:07.049327+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:51.578788
License: Public Domain

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I agree with my colleagues that Falcon-bridge cannot challenge the validity of the security agreement between Bank One and Vic Supply. I write separately to voice my concern regarding the majority’s further determination that the security agreement is, in any event, valid. While I am sympathetic to the majority’s intuition that Bank One and Vic Supply could not have intended the signature provision to mean what it says, I am not persuaded that such an intuition justifies reading the provision out of the agreement.
Under the signature provision, the security agreement becomes effective only if and when Bank One accepts the agreement by filling in the signature blank; something Bank One did not do. The signature provision is not at all ambiguous, nor is there any reason to believe it is merely surplusage. It is a cardinal principal of contract law that since the language of a contract is the best evidence of the parties’ intent, every provision of a contract should be given content and effect, and unambiguous contractual language should be given its plain and natural meaning. See, e.g., Emergency Med. Care, Inc. v. Marion Mem’l Hosp., 94 F.3d 1059, 1061 (7th Cir.1996) (applying Illinois law); River Forest State Bank & Trust Co. v. Rosemary Joyce Enters. Inc., 294 Ill.App.3d 173, 228 Ill.Dec. 291, 689 N.E.2d 163, 167 (1997). It does not matter that in hindsight one or both parties (or a court) might have second thoughts about the wisdom of including a particular term. Our task is to enforce the terms the parties included in their contract.
To my mind, moreover, it is telling that the majority cites not a single case adopting the same pragmatic approach it employs in interpreting the signature provision of the security agreement. No rule of law of which I am aware allows us to disregard the unambiguous terms of a contract in favor of what we believe the parties must have intended. Again, our task is to enforce the terms the parties included in their contract. Accordingly, I cannot join in the majority’s conclusion that the security agreement between Bank One and Vic Supply is valid.