Court Opinion

ID: 9637969
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:28:07.611611+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:02.337698
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice
(concurring).
While I agree with the result reached by the Court, I believe it has misperceived the problem involved. The Court concludes that the shareholders’ restrictive agreement contains an inherent “ambiguity” because it fails to allude to the possibility of an inter vivos transfer of shares by the surviving shareholder. This omission does not result in ambiguity; it is merely indicative of the apparent fact that the parties did not anticipate such an eventuality. As the Court quite correctly points out, the “manifest intentions” of the parties are clear: they wished to create an equal right of purchase among the three “key employees.” If the parties’ intentions are *603clear, I fail to see how the contract may be referred to as “ambiguous.”
The failure of the parties to advert to the situation which actually developed in this case does, however, call into play the doctrine of “necessary implication.” As the Superior Court has stated, “The law is clear that ‘In the absence of an express provision, the law will imply an agreement by the parties to a contract to do and perform those things that according to reason and justice they should do in order to carry out the purpose for which the contract was made and to refrain from doing anything that would destroy or injure the other party’s right to receive the fruits of the contract’ ”. D. B. Van Campen Corp. v. Building and Const. Trades Council of Phila., 202 Pa.Super. 118, 122, 195 A.2d 134, 136 (1963). See also 16 Am.Jur.2d, Contracts, sec. 255 at 649; 17 C.J.S. Contracts § 328 at 778; 8 P.L.E. Contracts, sec. 164 at 209. In the present case, a restriction on the capability of the surviving shareholder to make an inter vivos transfer of his shares to some but not all the key employees must be inferred from the purpose of the contract; otherwise, the other provisions of the agreement designed for their protection would be rendered meaningless.