Court Opinion

ID: 9849429
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:40:03.233563+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:23.774367
License: Public Domain

Hill, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
The majority apply the rule that the measure of damages for breach of a contract to sell land is the difference between the contract price and the fair market value of the land at the time of the breach. If the contract price is fair, as it should be, a purchaser who breaches a contract to buy land will not be liable in damages under this rule, notwithstanding the fact that the seller has been delayed in disposing of the property and has been required to bear the expenses incurred by reason of such delay (e.g., continued insurance coverage, utility bills, maintenance costs, ad valorem taxes, and loss of use of the proceeds of the sale).
The majority qualify this restrictive measure of damages by holding that there can be no recovery of additional damages in the absence of a clause in the parties’ contract expressly authorizing such recovery. In the contract at issue in this case it was provided as follows: “Purchaser agrees that, in the event the sale is not closed because of purchaser’s inability, failure or refusal to perform any of purchaser’s covenants herein, the earnest money [$6,000] is to be applied by seller to seller’s damages, but receipt of such earnest money by seller shall not prejudice or eliminate seller’s rights to obtain specific performance and/or recover additional damages under this contract.” As I read the contract, it contains the very clause expressly authorizing the recovery of additional damages the majority say would authorize such recovery.
Where a contract has been breached, whether it be a contract for the sale of land or any other contract, the law, OCGA Title 13, Chap*35ter 6, provides what damages shall be recoverable, unless the parties specify in their contract what amount the damages for a breach shall be. OCGA § 13-6-7. The majority reverse this statutory scheme and hold, in effect, that damages for breach of a contract for the sale of land will not be recoverable unless the parties agree in their contract that damages authorized by our code shall be recoverable.
Decided October 1, 1985 —
Reconsideration denied October 17, 1985.
Davis, Matthews & Quigley, Baxter L. Davis, Kenneth I. Sokolov, for appellant.
Arnall, Golden & Gregory, James A. Gober, for appellees.
OCGA § 13-6-2 authorizes the recovery of damages in this case. It provides that “Damages recoverable for a breach of contract are such as arise naturally and according to the usual course of things from such breach and such as the parties contemplated, when the contract was made, as the probable result of its breach.” I would hold that where a seller puts property on the market for sale, and a purchaser contracts to purchase it and thereafter breaches such contract, the parties necessarily contemplated that the seller would be delayed in disposing of the property and would incur damages (continued insurance coverage, utility bills, maintenance costs, ad valorem taxes, and loss of use of the proceeds of the sale) as a result of the purchaser’s breach of contract. I therefore dissent.
I am authorized to state that Justice Smith and Justice Bell join in this dissent.