Wolf Mountain Resorts, LC v. ASC Utah, Inc.

• Decision Date: 15 December 2011
• Docket Number: No. 20100342–CA.,20100342–CA.
• Parties: WOLF MOUNTAIN RESORTS, LC, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. ASC UTAH, INC., et al., Defendant and Appellee.
• Court: Utah Court of Appeals

2011 UT App 425

268 P.3d 872

697 Utah Adv. Rep. 27

WOLF MOUNTAIN RESORTS, LC, Plaintiff and Appellant,

v.ASC UTAH, INC., et al., Defendant and Appellee.

No. 20100342–CA.

Court of Appeals of Utah.

Dec. 15, 2011.

David M. Wahlquist, Rod N. Andreason, Ryan B. Frazier, and Michael D. Zimmerman, Salt Lake City, for Appellant.

John P. Ashton, Clark K. Taylor, Mary Jane E. Galvin–Wagg, John R. Lund, and Kara L. Pettit, Salt Lake City, for Appellee.

Before Judges THORNE, VOROS, and ROTH.

OPINION

THORNE, Judge:

¶ 1 Wolf Mountain Resorts, LC (Wolf Mountain) appeals from the district court's entry of summary judgment in favor of ASC Utah, Inc. (ASCU). In its summary judgment order, the district court reformed the language of a mortgage's due on sale clause, accepting ASCU's argument that, in drafting the clause, the parties had twice inadvertently written the word “Mortgagee” instead of the intended word, “Mortgagor.” We conclude that evidence submitted by Wolf Mountain in opposition to summary judgment created a question of material fact as to the parties' intent in drafting the due on sale clause, and we reverse the grant of summary judgment and remand this matter to the district court for further proceedings.

BACKGROUND

¶ 2 In November 2005, ASCU entered into a leasehold mortgage (the Mortgage) with Wolf Mountain. The Mortgage denominated ASCU as the “Mortgagor” and Wolf Mountain as the “Mortgagee,” and employed those terms throughout its text in referring to the parties. The purpose of the Mortgage was to secure certain obligations that ASCU, as tenant, owed to Wolf Mountain under a previously executed ground lease (the Ground Lease), through which Wolf Mountain had leased real property to ASCU for its operation of The Canyons ski resort. The Mortgage transferred ASCU's tenancy interest under a separate lease with the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (the SITLA Lease) to Wolf Mountain as security for ASCU's obligations under the Ground Lease.

¶ 3 The Mortgage contained various default provisions, including a clause (the Due On Sale Clause) declaring a default in the event of the sale or transfer of either ASCU itself or the mortgaged interest described in the Mortgage (the Mortgaged Estate). The Due On Sale Clause provided that “any sale, transfer, conveyance or assignment of all or any portion of, or any interest in, the Mortgaged Estate, or the sale, transfer, conveyance or assignment of any controlling ownership interest in and to the Mortgagor [ASCU]” would constitute an event of default on the Mortgage. The Due On Sale Clause contained two exceptions, the second of which (the Exception) gives rise to the current dispute. The Exception defined a particular type of transfer that would not constitute a default under the Due On Sale Clause:

[A]ny transfer of all or substantially all of Mortgagee's [ (Wolf Mountain's) ] rights in and to the development currently known as The Canyons (including, without limitation, all of Mortgagee's [ (Wolf Mountain's) ] interest as tenant under the Ground Lease and the Mortgaged Estate) whether affected by stock or asset sale, provided that such transfer shall be expressly subject to each and every one of the liens, rights and interests of the Mortgagee [ (Wolf Mountain) ] under this Leasehold Mortgage. For purposes of the foregoing sentence, “substantially all” shall include all of the assets held by Mortgagor [ (ASCU) ] which are necessary for unimpeded operation and development of The Canyons resort as it currently exists or may be improved.

(Emphasis added.) The Mortgage expressly provided that all of the default provisions, including the Due On Sale Clause and the Exception, “shall be strictly construed.”

¶ 4 In July 2007, ASCU was sold by capital stock sale to Talisker Canyons Finance Company and Talisker Corporation (collectively, Talisker). The sale bound Talisker to each of the rights, liens, and interests of Wolf Mountain under the Mortgage. Wolf Mountain sued ASCU to foreclose on the Mortgage, alleging that the sale of ASCU constituted an event of default under the Due On Sale Clause. ASCU responded to Wolf Mountain's complaint with a motion to dismiss asserting that the Talisker sale did not constitute a default pursuant to the Exception because Talisker remained subject to all of Wolf Mountain's rights and interests under the Mortgage. In opposition to ASCU's motion, Wolf Mountain argued that the plain language of the Exception addressed the sale of the Mortgagee's—i.e., Wolf Mountain's—rights in and to The Canyons, not ASCU's rights as the Mortgagor. ASCU responded that the Exception's use of the word Mortgagee was, in the context, clearly a typographical error and that the parties' clear intent was to allow certain sales of ASCU's rights to The Canyons as the Mortgagor. The district court determined that it could not decide the question of the parties' intent on a motion to dismiss and denied ASCU's motion.

¶ 5 The parties then brought competing motions for summary judgment on the issue of whether the Exception applied to sales of Wolf Mountain's rights or ASCU's rights in The Canyons. ASCU made various arguments as to why the language of the Exception as drafted made little sense in the context of the Due On Sale Clause and the Mortgage as a whole. Wolf Mountain argued that the Exception was drafted exactly as the parties had intended it and supported this argument with the affidavit of Bradley Rauch, an attorney who had participated in the drafting of the Mortgage as counsel for Wolf Mountain. Rauch's affidavit described the drafting process and stated,

There was no typographical or scrivener's error in the final “due on sale” clause incorporated into the final Leasehold Mortgage. The Second Exception to the Due–On–Sale Clause was intended to provide Wolf Mountain—the “Mortgagee”—with the right to enter into a joint transaction with ASCU to sell both of their interests in the resort and its underlying lands to a third party without triggering the Due–On–Sale Clause. The district court expressly declined to consider extrinsic evidence of the parties' intent, including Rauch's affidavit, and instead agreed with ASCU that the Exception's use of the word Mortgagee to identify qualifying transfers was clear typographical or scrivener's error.

¶ 6 The district court determined that the Exception's use of the word Mortgagee was inconsistent with the general purpose of the Due On Sale Clause to protect Wolf Mountain against an unsecured sale of ASCU's interests and created an absurd result whereby Wolf Mountain was granted the unilateral ability to create a default and then foreclose on the Mortgage. The district court also identified several specific ways in which the language of the Exception appeared to be inconsistent with other provisions of the Mortgage, including: the Exception spoke in terms of Wolf Mountain transferring its interest in the Mortgaged Estate, yet the Mortgaged Estate, consisting of ASCU's tenancy interest under the SITLA Lease, belonged to ASCU; the Exception was triggered by a sale of “substantially all” of Wolf Mountain's interests, but “substantially all” was then expressly defined to mean “all of the assets held by Mortgagor [ASCU]”; and the Exception characterized Wolf Mountain as the tenant under the Ground Lease when the Mortgage expressly identified ASCU as the tenant. In light of these multiple inconsistencies, all of which would be resolved if the Exception were intended to apply to a transfer of ASCU's rights rather than Wolf Mountain's, the district court determined that the intent of the parties was clear and that “the error of placing ‘ee’ rather than ‘or’ was the product of confusion or a scrivener's error.”

¶ 7 The district court then reformed the Mortgage so that the Exception referred to transfers by ASCU as Mortgagor rather than Wolf Mountain as Mortgagee. Pursuant to the reformed language, the Talisker sale fell within the terms of the Exception and did not constitute a default under the Due On Sale Clause. Accordingly, the district court denied Wolf Mountain's motion for summary judgment and entered summary judgment in ASCU's favor, dismissing Wolf Mountain's foreclosure action. Wolf Mountain appeals.

ISSUES AND STANDARDS OF REVIEW

¶ 8 Wolf Mountain argues that Rauch's affidavit raised a fact question that precluded the entry of summary judgment in ASCU's favor and that the district court should have instead granted Wolf Mountain's own summary judgment motion. “An appellate court reviews a trial court's ‘legal conclusions and ultimate grant or denial of summary judgment’ for correctness and views ‘the facts and all reasonable inferences drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.’ ” Orvis v. Johnson, 2008 UT 2, ¶ 6, 177 P.3d 600 (citations omitted). “ ‘A motion for summary judgment may not be granted if ... there is a factual issue as to what the parties intended.’ ” West One Trust Co. v. Morrison, 861 P.2d 1058, 1062 (Utah Ct.App.1993) (omission in original) (quoting Winegar v. Froerer Corp., 813 P.2d 104, 108 (Utah 1991)).

ANALYSIS

¶ 9 The district court determined on summary judgment that two uses of the word “Mortgagee” in the Exception constituted scrivener's error and that the parties clearly intended to use the word “Mortgagor” instead. Wolf Mountain argues that the reformation of a contract based on scrivener's error may...