Vezaldenos v. Keller

254 Cal. App. 2d 816, 62 Cal. Rptr. 808
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedSeptember 29, 1967
DocketCiv. 799
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 254 Cal. App. 2d 816 (Vezaldenos v. Keller) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Vezaldenos v. Keller, 254 Cal. App. 2d 816, 62 Cal. Rptr. 808 (Cal. Ct. App. 1967).

Opinion

GARGANO, J.

Respondents instituted an action in the Superior Court of San Joaquin County to specifically enforce an option to purchase land owned by appellants Maryan J. Vezaldenos and John K. Vezaldenos. Shortly thereafter appellant Maryan J. Vezaldenos instituted a separate action in the same court seeking to eject respondents from the land and to recover possession thereof. The actions were consolidated for trial and tried by the court sitting without a jury. The trial judge ordered specific enforcement in favor of respondents.

*820 The controversy in both actions centered around an option to purchase contained in a lease executed by appellants in 1956. The facts which gave rise to this controversy, when viewed in the light most favorable to respondents, are substantially as follows:

Appellants owned farm land in San Joaquin County located along French Camp Road, a public road. A nearly rectangular pit encompassing between five and six acres had been excavated on this farm land several years prior to the transactions involved here. A strip of land approximately 39 feet wide and 351 feet long runs between the northeastern rim of the pit and French Camp Road. This strip of land provides the only access to the pit from the road.

In January 1956, respondents contacted appellants and offered to lease their pit. Respondents were in the trucking business and wanted to use the pit for the storage of rice hulls. Lease terms were discussed at this meeting which was attended by appellants’ son, George Vezaldenos, who participated in the discussions; George Vezaldenos helped his parents manage and operate their farm. On January 19, 1956, (approximately one week later) respondents prepared a lease and took it to the Vezaldenos farm. The appellants and their son, George Vezaldenos, signed the lease on the same day. This lease reads as follows:

Lease
“On this day of January 19, 1956, Hr. J. K. Vezaldenos, agrees to lease for the amount of one hundred dollars ($100.00), a year for a five (5) year period, to Keller Bros., Rt. 2, Box 20, Galt, California and Battaglia Bros., Rt. 3, Box 317 C, Lodi, California, a five (5) more or less acre pit located on the French Camp Road, San Joaquin County. Said pit has a one hundred-fifty (150) foot frontage.
This is a five (5) year lease with an option of five (5) more years to lease property after lease expires or option to buy said pit for one hundred dollars ($100.00) per acre.
Rent to be paid on the first day of February of every year, beginning, 1 February 1956, until lease expires. ’ ’

Within two weeks after appellants signed the lease respondents took possession of the pit and thereafter used it continuously under the terms of their lease until December 1960 or January 1961. At the same time they also took possession of the easterly 150 feet of the strip of land between the pit and French Camp Road and used it during the entire period for access to the pit and for the location of a building.

*821 In December 1960 or January 1961, respondents informed appellants’ son, George Vezaldenos, that they wished to exercise their option to purchase the pit for the purchase price of $100 per acre as provided in the option. George Vezaldenos refused respondents declaring that “he” would not sell the property and that “he” would not renew the lease at the same rental. Respondents then hired a surveyor to survey the pit and the frontage area and to prepare a land description. On January 31, 1961, respondents again notified appellants, this time in writing, of their intention to exercise the option. Respondents handed the written notice, the surveyor’s land description and a check in the amount of $600 to Maryan J. Vezaldenos.

The land description included the entire strip of land between the northeastern rim of the pit and French Camp Road (the entire 351-foot frontage). The description also embraced a total of approximately 25 feet of additional land overlapping the northwestern and southeastern sides of the pit. Because the pit edges were jagged and difficult to describe, the surveyor apparently included the additional 25 feet in order to facilitate the preparation of the description. Appellants promptly returned respondents’ check.

Appellants’ numerous arguments for reversal are sometimes mere quarrels with the sufficiency of the evidence to support the trial court’s findings and conclusions. Thus, to avoid repetition, we deem it advisable to point out at the very outset (as we must often do in appeals of this nature) that an appellate court does not weigh the evidence, judge the credibility of witnesses nor resolve conflicts in the evidence, but it will indulge all intendments and reasonable inferences which favor sustaining the trier of fact (Berniker v. Berniker, 30 Cal.2d 439 [182 P.2d 557] ; Overton v. Vita-Food Corp., 94 Cal.App.2d 367 [210 P.2d 757]). The test on appeal is simply whether there is substantial evidence to support the findings of the trial court. In making this determination this court must accept all evidence most favorable to respondent as true and reject all evidence unfavorable to respondent as not having sufficient veracity to be accepted by the trier of the fact (Estate of Teel, 25 Cal.2d 520 [154 P.2d 384]).

. We shall consider appellants’ contentions for reversal with these broad appellate principles in mind. Appellants contend:

I. The option was not an absolute option to purchase; *822 rather, it was an option conditional upon appellants’ intent to sell.
II. The option to purchase appellants’ pit was unenforceable because its terms were uncertain and ambiguous.
III. The respondents never effectively exercised the option either orally or in writing.
IY. The option was unenforceable because appellants gave it under the influence of a mistake of fact.
Y. The option price was manifestly unfair and unconscionable ; the court erred in not determining the fairness, justness, and adequacy of the consideration for the land.
YI.. The description of the land subject to specific performance, as stated in the court’s finding of fact and incorporated into the judgment granting speific performance, is erroneous.

I

Appellants base their contention that respondents did not have an absolute option to buy the pit primarily on the argument that the option is ambiguous in this respect and should have been construed strongly against respondents who, by drafting the lease, caused the ambiguity to exist.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
254 Cal. App. 2d 816, 62 Cal. Rptr. 808, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/vezaldenos-v-keller-calctapp-1967.