Faith v. Morello
Faith v. Morello
Opinion of the Court
A rehearing was granted in this case in order to give further consideration to certain contentions advanced by appellants. Upon such reconsideration we are of the opinion that the contentions of appellants are meritorious and should to some extent be sustained. Appellants do not complain that this court in its prior decision incorrectly disposed of the principal question which is presented on this appeal, and since we now entertain the conviction that our opinion heretofore rendered made proper disposition of such question, we therefore adopt so much of said opinion as is decisive of said question. It is as follows:
“This is an appeal by.plaintiffs from a judgment rendered in favor of defendants by the Superior Court of Fresno county. The action was instituted by plaintiffs for the purpose of obtaining a decree compelling specific performance by defendants of a certain contract entered into between plaintiffs and defendants whereby defendants had agreed to sell and plaintiffs had agreed to buy a certain parcel of land for a stipulated sum of money. The complaint alleged that upon execution of the contract plaintiffs had entered into possession of the property and had fully performed their part of the agreement, that defendants had wrongfully secured possession of the property and refused to surrender possession to plaintiffs who were entitled thereto. The defendants filed an answer and cross-complaint wherein they admitted execution of the contract and that they had retaken possession of the land, but alleged that they had done so for the reason that plaintiffs had violated the terms of*34 the contract of sale. The pleading concluded with the prayer that the title of defendants to the property be quieted as against the claims of plaintiffs.
“It is conceded that there was no material conflict in the evidence which was submitted during the trial of the action. The main question presented on this appeal relates to the construction by the trial court of a certain provision of the aforesaid contract. It is the contention of appellants that the trial court incorrectly interpreted this provision. Consideration of this contention necessitates a brief statement of the facts which were developed by the evidence.
“On August 4, 1930, respondent, Paradise Vineyards, Inc., was the owner of a tract of land in Fresno county comprising approximately 320 acres. On this date the said corporation entered into a written contract with appellants whereby it agreed to sell and appellants agreed to purchase the property for the sum of $90,000, of which amount the sum of $2,500 was paid in cash on the execution of the agreement and a further sum of $22,500 was to be paid from the proceeds to be derived from the sale of grapes that were then being grown on the land. The balance of the purchase price which amounted to the sum of $65,000 was to be paid in specified annual instalments. The contract recited that ‘both parties hereto understand that said property is subject to’ a lien of the Bank of Italy in the sum of $46,250. It is also evident from the terms of the contract that the lien of the bank was one which existed by virtue of a trust deed or mortgage executed by respondent and that by the terms thereof the respondent was obligated each year to make a payment of $7,500 on account of the principal of the indebtedness to the bank and also to make semiannual payments of interest due on the unpaid balance of the principal. The contract between the respondent corporation and appellants contained the following provision which it is contended the trial court improperly construed:
“ ‘In the event the income from said real property, due to frost injury, market conditions, or other conditions beyond the control of buyers, is so reduced that it is insufficient, after deducting operating costs, to make the payments herein required to be made by buyers, then should buyers and both of them be unable financially to make said payments from funds or other resources under their control,*35 seller agrees that they will for such year consent to an extension of the payment accruing for such year to the December first following, provided that the actual net income from said real property is applied towards the payment of taxes first, the payments of interest on the first incumbrance, secondly, and thirdly towards the payment of any instalments on said first incumbrance accruing during said year, and sellers expressly consent that buyers may procure from the holder of said incumbrance an extension of the instalment payment accruing in such year after the application of the net proceeds from operations of said real property have been applied as herein required. Should, however, owing to insufficient net income or insufficient resources of buyers, exclusive of income from said real property, be insufficient to prevent a foreclosure of the incumbrance on said real property and a foreclosure occur, buyer shall in that event have no cause of action or claim against seller by reason of the loss of his investment in said real property. In this connection buyers agree that they shall keep careful record of all operating expenses for each year, which record and expenses shall be furnished to seller in the event an extension is required under this paragraph.’
“The court found that after the execution of the contract appellants went into possession of the property and performed all terms, covenants, and conditions of the agreement which they were required to perform except that' they failed to make the payments of principal and interest to the Bank of Italy which were due on December 1, 1931. The court also found that during the year 1931 the crops which were produced on the land were approximately one-third of the normal crops, due to excessive heat and other conditions beyond the control of appellants and that for this reason the proceeds from the sale of crops were so reduced that they were insufficient to pay the operating expenses of the property and that appellants were not nor was either of them financially able to make the payments required of them by the contract or to the bank and that there was no actual net income from the property during the year 1931. The court, however, further specifically found that by the terms of the contract appellants were bound to make the payments of principal and interest due the Bank of Italy on December 1, 1931, even though the net income from*36 the property during the year 1931 due to frost injury, market conditions, or other conditions beyond the control of appellants was so reduced that it was insufficient to make the payments required to be made by appellants and even though appellants were and each of them was financially unable to malte such payments from funds under their control or the control of either of them and even though there was no actual net income from the property. In other words, the court so interpreted the contract that appellants were required to make the annual payments due to the bank and so construed the agreement that the obligation to make such payments was not included within the language of the provision by which the respondent corporation expressly agreed to extend for one year the payments which were specified to be made to it by appellants in the event that the net income from the property should prove insufficient to make such payments and appellants were financially unable to make the payments from their private funds.
“The language of the so-called extension clause of the contract hereinabove quoted appears to lend support to the contention of appellants. It is therein stated that if it should develop that the net income from the property, by reason of specified conditions including the very general contingency of the occurrence of conditions beyond the control of appellants, should be so reduced as to make it insufficient to make the payments which appellants were required to make by the terms of the contract and if appellants should be financially unable to make these payments from funds under their control, the respondent corporation agreed that it would ‘for such year consent to an extension of the payment accruing for such year to the December first following’. The court found, and there is no contention that there was not ample evidence to support its finding, that the very situation mentioned in the extension clause did come into existence during the year 1931. The evidence showed that this year was an unusually dry year and that the quantity of crops produced was slightly more than one-third of that which had been produced during the preceding year and that consequently there was no net income derived from the land but, that, on the contrary, appellants paid more than six thousand dollars from their private funds to supply*37 a deficiency in the amount required to pay operating expenses. The undisputed evidence also showed that neither appellants jointly were, nor either of them severally was able to make the payments required of them by the terms of the contract. This situation which was exactly the one which was evidently anticipated might occur would seem to fall within the express terms of the aforesaid clause of the contract and to require the respondent corporation to grant to appellants an extension of one year in the payment of the instalment which was due from appellants on December 1, 1931.
“ Furthermore, it is a familiar and well-established rule that, in the interpretation of written agreements, the essential element of the intent of the parties to a contract is to be discovered by a consideration of the instrument in its entirety rather than by an examination of detached portions of the instrument (Hunt v. United Bank & Trust Co., 210 Cal. 108 [291 Pac. 184] ; Nakagawa v. Okamoto, 164 Cal. 718 [130 Pac. 707] ; Mente & Co., Inc., v. Fresno Compress & Warehouse Co., 113 Cal. App. 325 [298 Pac. 126]; 6 Cal. Jur. 259). The application of this rule lends further support to the contention advanced by appellants. Analysis of the lengthy and complicated contract which was entered into between the respondent corporation and appellants shows that on the date of the agreement the corporation was the owner of the land; that the property was subject to the lien of a trust deed or first mortgage which had been executed by the corporation to secure the payment of an indebtedness owing from the corporation to the Bank of Italy; that the corporation was obligated on December 1st of each year to make a payment of $7,500 on the principal of the indebtedness and on June 1st and December 1st of each year to make semi-annual payments of. interest on the balance of such indebtedness; that on the date of the agreement the principal of this indebtedness was $46,250. As above noted, appellants agreed to purchase the property for the sum of $90,000, of which they paid $2,500 in cash and agreed to make a further payment of $22,500 from the proceeds to be derived from the sale of grapes which were then growing on the land. The balance of the purchase price, amounting to $65,000, was to be paid as follows: ‘$7500.00 on or before December 1, 1931;
“From the above-described complicated and not altogether unambiguous provisions of the contract certain deductions
“Taking specifically the language of the extension clause of the contract whose proper interpretation presents the legal problem which is here involved, we find that the respondent corporation expressly agreed that, if the net income from the property due to certain stated conditions, including the very general contingency of ‘other conditions beyond the control of buyers’, should be insufficient to enable the buyers to make the payments required of them and if the buyers should further be financially unable to make such payments from their private funds or resources, it would consent to an extension of the payment accruing for such year to the December first following. What were these payments which by the terms of the contract appellants were required to make during the year 1931? They were first a payment of $7,500 on the $65,000 balance and, second, a payment of interest on this balance at the rate of 7 per cent for one year. Both of these payments were to be made on December 1, 1931. If these payments were not made, due to insufficiency of net income from the property caused by any of the specified conditions, the respondent corporation became obligated to grant an extension.
“In support of the trial court’s interpretation of the so-called extension clause respondents rely on certain language which appears in another part of the contract and upon certain evidence which was .produced whose effect was, it is urged, to show a practical interpretation of the extension
“The language of the contract upon which respondents thus rely is as follows: ‘Buyers must pay interest semiannually on June 1st and December 1st, next succeeding, to the amount of interest accruing on the present incumbrance now held by the Bank of Italy, or on any incumbrance or. substitution thereof that may be placed thereon, but aside from the payment of the interest on this incumbrance which must be made semiannually, Buyers’ interest shall be paid annually on the first day of December of each year.’ It is contended that the foregoing language clearly imposed upon appellants the definite duty to make the semiannual interest payments which were required to be made on the unpaid balance of the principal indebtedness secured by the lien of the so-called first incumbrance" and indicated that the payment of interest charges on the first incumbrance was not covered by the language of the extension clause.
“However, if it be assumed that the above-quoted language imposed upon appellants the obligation of paying the semiannual interest charges on the first incumbrance it must be conceded that this duty was one that was created solely by the contract. No one has had the temerity to suggest that it came into existence in any other manner. Certainly it could not have been imposed by the terms of the trust deed or mortgage which represented the lien of what is so frequently called the ‘first incumbrance’ in the contract. The first incumbrance was in existence when the contract between the parties to the present action was executed. It was placed upon the property either by the respondent corporation or by one of its predecessors in interest. It is nowhere suggested, nor does the record contain any evidence tending to show, that appellants were parties to the trust deed or mortgage which was owned by the Bank of Italy. Since the obligation to make the semiannual payments of interest charged on the first incumbrance was one that was imposed upon appellants solely by the terms of the contract it would appear that it is clearly covered by the following language of the extension clause. ‘In the event the income from said real property ... is so reduced that it is insufficient, after deducting operating costs, to make the payments
“ The contention of respondents that there had been a practical interpretation of the contract by appellants which coincided with the trial court’s interpretation is based upon certain evidence which was produced during the trial. It was shown that prior to June 1, 1931, appellants had negotiated directly with the Bank of Italy with respect to the payment of interest on the first incumbrance which would be due on June 1, 1931, and that as a result of these negotiations the bank, on May 28, 1931, accepted from appellants their promissory note for the sum of $1,582.29, representing the interest which would be due on the first incumbrance on June 1, 1931, payment of which note was secured by a chattel mortgage executed by appellants and likewise delivered to the bank. By this action in thus dealing directly with the bank and by thus paying the interest on the first incumbrance to the bank, it is argued that appellants themselves so construed the provisions of the contract as to indicate that they recognized that they were obligated to make the semiannual payments of interest on the first incumbrance and further recognized not only a distinct obligation to pay the interest, but an obligation to pay the interest direct to the holder of the first incumbrance. The next step in this line of reasoning is that the recognition of an obligation to pay the interest direct to the third party amounted to a practical admission by appellants that all payments, both of interest and of instalments of the principal of the first incumbrance, were required to be paid by them not to the respondent corporation but to the holder of the first incumbrance. The final step in this reasoning is that the trial court correctly interpreted the
“There are two difficulties which prevent the acceptance of this reasoning. In the first place it does not take into account the fact that whatever obligation rested upon appellants to make any payments on the first incumbrance was an obligation which was created by the contract. These payments were therefore payments which were required by the contract to be made by the buyers (appellants) and as such were included within the very language of the extension clause. In the second place the action of appellants in dealing directly with the holder of the first incumbrance cannot be construed as an admission by appellants of a distinct obligation thus to deal for the reason that appellants were expressly accorded the privilege of making all payments which should fall due under the terms of the contract .directly to the Bank of Italy ‘in lieu of making payments to seller, and payments so made to the Bank of Italy shall, as and when made, be credited as payments upon this contract’. In other words, appellants were given the option of making all payments required of them under the contract directly to the bank and their exercise of this option may not be construed as an admission by them that such payment so made is not included within the language of the extension clause.
“It is therefore our opinion that the trial court incorrectly interpreted the extension clause of the contract and that its finding, which expresses this improper interpretation, is not justified.”
The problem which remains for solution is whether or not the finding of the trial court that neither appellants were nor either of them was financially able to make the payments required to be made by them on December 1, 1931, from funds or resources under their control or under the control of either of them is sufficiently supported by the evidence to require a reversal of the judgment, or whether this finding may be so modified in accordance with the evidence that an affirmance of the judgment may be ordered. In our prior opinion it was our conclusion that, although this finding was proper so far as it went, it required alteration and modification because it did not fully reflect the
In their petition for a rehearing appellants complain that the trial court’s finding of financial inability to make the payment due from them on December 1, 1931, was supported by the evidence produced during the trial and that the modification of this finding made by this court in its original opinion was therefore not justified. It is conceded that the inclusion by appellants of the initial cash payment of $2,500 as an item of disbursement in their written statement of receipts and disbursements for the year 1930 was improper since the contract clearly provided that the balance of the payment of $25,000, which was to be made during the season of 1930, should be paid from profits derived from the operation of the property during this season. It is therefore granted that our original conclusion that appellants embarked upon the year 1931 with a balance of $568.51 was justified by the figures which appeared in the statement of receipts and disbursements for the season of 1930 furnished to respondents by appellants after the
An examination of the record has produced the conviction that the matters above outlined were regarded as being of minor importance during the trial of the action and that they then received but slight attention. The present condition of the record is such that we feel we cannot now decide them with that certainty of just disposition which should always be present when a review purports to bring litigation to a complete and final termination. The matters to which reference has here been made should be thoroughly developed at a second trial of the action.
The judgment from which this appeal has been taken is therefore reversed.
Barnard, P. J., and Marks, J., concurred.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.