CACI 321 Existence of Condition Precedent Disputed
California Civil Jury Instructions CACI
321 Existence of Condition Precedent Disputed
[Name of defendant] claims that the contract with [name of plaintiff] provides that [he/she/nonbinary pronoun/it] was not required to [insert duty] unless [insert condition precedent].
[Name of defendant] must prove that the parties agreed to this condition. If [name of defendant] proves this, then [name of plaintiff] must prove that [insert condition precedent].
If [name of plaintiff] does not prove that [insert condition precedent], then [name of defendant] was not required to [insert duty].
Directions for Use
This instruction should only be given if both the existence and the occurrence of a condition precedent are contested. If only the occurrence of a condition precedent is contested, use CACI No. 322, Occurrence of Agreed Condition Precedent.
Sources and Authority
•Conditional Obligation. Civil Code section 1434.
•Condition Precedent. Civil Code section 1436.
•“Under the law of contracts, parties may expressly agree that a right or duty is conditional upon the occurrence or nonoccurrence of an act or event.” (Platt Pacific, Inc. v. Andelson (1993) 6 Cal.4th 307, 313 [24 Cal.Rptr.2d 597, 862 P.2d 158].)
•“A conditional obligation is one in which ‘the rights or duties of any party thereto depend upon the occurrence of an uncertain event.’ ‘[P]arties may expressly agree that a right or duty is conditional upon the occurrence or nonoccurrence of an act or event.’ A condition in a contract may be a condition precedent, concurrent, or subsequent. ‘[A] condition precedent is either an act of a party that must be performed or an uncertain event that must happen before the contractual right accrues or the contractual duty arises.’ ” (JMR Construction Corp. v. Environmental Assessment & Remediation Management, Inc. (2015) 243 Cal.App.4th 571, 593 [198 Cal.Rptr.3d 47].)
•“The existence of a condition precedent normally depends upon the intent of the parties as determined from the words they have employed in the contract.” (Karpinski v. Smitty’s Bar, Inc. (2016) 246 Cal.App.4th 456, 464 [201 Cal.Rptr.3d 148].)
•“Dependent covenants or ‘[c]onditions precedent are not favored in the law [citations], and courts shall not construe a term of the contract so as to establish a condition precedent absent plain and unambiguous contract language to that effect.’ ” (Colaco v. Cavotec SA (2018) 25 Cal.App.5th 1172, 1183 [236 Cal.Rptr.3d 542], internal citations omitted.)
•“[W]here defendant’s duty to perform under the contract is conditioned on the happening of some event, the plaintiff must prove the event transpired.” (Consolidated World Investments, Inc. v. Lido Preferred Ltd. (1992) 9 Cal.App.4th 373, 380 [11 Cal.Rptr.2d 524].)
•“When a contract establishes the satisfaction of one of the parties as a condition precedent, two tests are recognized: (1) The party is bound to make his decision according to the judicially discerned, objective standard of a reasonable person; (2) the party may make a subjective decision regardless of reasonableness, controlled only by the need for good faith. Which test applies in a given transaction is a matter of actual or judicially inferred intent. Absent an explicit contractual direction or one implied from the subject matter, the law prefers the objective, i.e., reasonable person, test.” (Guntert v. City of Stockton (1974) 43 Cal.App.3d 203, 209 [117 Cal.Rptr. 601], internal citations omitted.)
•“[T]he parol evidence rule does not apply to conditions precedent.” (Karpinski, supra, 246 Cal.App.4th at p. 464, fn 6.)