Precious little legal analysis is required to grasp the lesson from Springbok Royalty Partners v. Cook. No mode or manner of legal gymnastics is likely to save parties from the legal effect of a contract they didn’t bother to read before they signed it.
The agreement
Following a lengthy conversation between the Cooks and a Springbok employee, the parties agreed to a price for the sale of the Cooks’ minerals and signed a letter agreement entitled “Offer to Purchase Mineral Interests in Lands”. Springbok made a cash offer of $575,000 in consideration for a mineral deed for all of the right, title and interest they held and/or owned in and to 111 net mineral acres under land in DeSoto Parish, Louisiana.
The agreement included language to the effect: It would form a binding agreement; the Cooks would be deemed to have received good, valuable and sufficient consideration for their execution and delivery of their counterpart of the letter and performance of their obligations thereunder; they would not take a position to the contrary; if they signed the agreement they would be obligated to execute and deliver a mineral deed covering all their interest in the property.
The suit
Springbok sued the Cooks to enforce the letter agreement. The Cooks refused to conclude the sale after receiving a better offer. Summary judgment in favor of Springbok was affirmed.
The Cooks’ summary judgment affidavits testified that they thought they were selling half of their interests and that they never intended to sell the entirety. They also testified that they did not read the agreement prior to signing it.
The Cooks’ futile arguments
The contract was ambiguous: The agreement was clear and explicit and led to no absurd consequences. It unambiguously stated that they were selling all of their mineral interests. When Mr. Cook read the contract two days after he signed, it became clear to him then that they had sold the entirety of their interests.
Unilateral error: Consent may be vitiated by error, fraud or duress only when it concerns a cause without which the obligation would not have occurred and that cause was known or should have been known to the other party. Unilateral error will not vitiate consent to a contract unless the error was inexcusable. The Cooks were sophisticated landowners who had previously executed leases and engaged in other complicated property transactions.
Fraud: The Springbok employee knew or should have known that their intent was to only convey half of their minerals. Fraud does not vitiate consent where the party against whom the fraud was directed could have ascertained the truth without difficulty, inconvenience or special skill. The record showed no evidence of fraud.
Accounting was error. because Springbok did not plead for it. The trial court had discretion to allow enlargement of the plaintiff’s recovery to conform to the evidence. The final judgment must grant the relief to which the party whose favor it is rendered is entitled even if the party has not demanded such relief in his pleadings and there is no prayer for general and equitable relief.
New Orleans’ own Walter “Wolfman” Washington RIP
from Texas Bar Today https://ift.tt/H9Wxzj4
via Abogado Aly Website
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