Court Opinion

ID: 9608990
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:20:58.785095+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:31:02.674151
License: Public Domain

Duckworth, Chief Justice,
dissenting. The recorded declared development plan expressly states that the restriction to residential uses is for the purpose of protecting purchasers of said propperty. This obviously was intended to enable the developer to receive higher prices for the lots. It was enough to bind every lot in the subdivision to its terms, whether expressed in the deeds or not. But the further provision therein that it would become binding when expressed in the deeds, taken literally and apart from the first portion, would nullify the first portion. Sound construction requires consideration of the entire document, and a construction, if the language will permit, to effectuate the intention. This would forbid the majority construction, which gives effect to the latter provision despite the fact that they thereby render the former, which expresses an intent, utterly meaningless. It will bear a construction that the latter was merely an erroneous conclusion of law that insertion in the deeds was necessary to render the restrictions binding, and by so construing it the only possible purpose in writing it, to wit, restrictions to' protect the purchasers, is effectuated. The legal opinion is erroneous and may be disregarded. To do so does not militate against the clear intentions.
*627But if the foregoing construction, to which I know of no exception, is rejected, we then have an alleged verbal promise of the developer to sell only under restrictions to residential use, which, under Atlanta Assn. of Baptist Churches v. Cowan, 183 Ga. 187 (188 S. E. 21), Atlanta Assn. of Baptist Churches v. Cowan, 186 Ga. 10 (196 S. E. 780), and Phillips v. Ingram, 163 Ga. 580 (136 S. E. 785), is valid and enforceable.
The virtue of the rules this dissent adheres to is illustrated by the facts in this case. The complainants have paid their money to the developer on a restriction price basis and he now seeks, while enjoying the fruits of enhanced value from the restrictions, to enrich himself further by violating those restrictions regardless of the loss inflicted upon those who paid the premium prices for the restrictions.
To construe the recorded restrictions as the majority do is to attribute to the owner the intention thereby to take money from purchasers by means of a trick document. Had his intention been as the majority say it was, to freely and arbitrarily decide when executing each deed whether or not any restrictions would be written therein, then the recorded document is without meaning, and serves only to deceive, mislead, and unjustly burden purchasers with costs that could profit them nothing. It is charitable to the developer to construe that restriction so as to give it a legitimate meaning rather than as a lure to entrap innocent purchasers. Eor the foregoing reasons I dissent.
Mr. Presiding Justice Head concurs in this dissent.