Anderson v. Hall
| Decision Date | 16 February 1918 |
| Parties | ALICE J. ANDERSON v. NATHAN J. HALL, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from Jackson Circuit Court. -- Hon. Thomas B. Buckner, Judge.
Reversed and remanded.
Otto Basye and Ben T. Hardin for appellant.
(1) There is no contract in this case that satisfies the Statutes of Frauds. No land is described, nor is the county or the state named. The essentials of a contract involving the Statute of Frauds are three, as laid down by this court Kelley v Thuey, 143 Mo. 435; Fox v. Courtney, 111 Mo. 147; Johnson v. Fecht, 185 Mo. 335; Ringer v. Holtzclaw, 112 Mo. 519; Boyd v. Paul, 125 Mo. 9; King v. Wood, 7 Mo. 390; Dixon v. Finnegan, 182 Mo. 111; Halsell v. Renfro, 202 U.S. 287; Preston v. Preston, 95 U.S. 200; Williams v. Morris, 95 U.S. 444. (2) In real estate contracts the rule is well established that parol testimony cannot supply what the written contract lacks. The statute changed the common law in that respect. The written contract must be complete in itself, or refer to some external standard, such as a public record, in order to let in parol testimony. Boyd v. Paul, 125 Mo. 9; Cement Co. v. Kreis, 261 Mo. 160; Reigart v. Coal Co., 217 Mo. 142; Culligan v. Wingerter, 57 Mo. 241; Kennedy v. Kennedy, 57 Mo. 73; Smith v. Snell, 82 Mo. 215; Fireproofing Co. v. Fireproofing Co., 177 Mo. 559; Springer v. Kleinsorge, 83 Mo. 152; Briggs v. Munchon, 56 Mo. 467; Wiley v. Roberts, 27 Mo. 388; McKeag v. Piednor, 74 Mo.App. 593; Schultz v. Hunter, 188 Mo.App. 520; Mason v. Small, 130 Mo.App. 249. There is no sufficient offer in this case and no sufficient acceptance of any alleged offer. The acceptance must be in the exact terms of the offer in order to constitute a binding contract. Sarran v. Richards, 151 Mo.App. 656.
Joseph S. Rust for respondent.
(1) All the letters and telegrams may be taken together in determining as to sufficiency of the description. Anderson v. Hall, 188 S.W. 79; Leesley v. Fruit Co., 162 Mo.App. 195; Peycke v. Ahearns, 98 Mo.App. 459. (2) Parol evidence may be introduced to make the contract more definite and certain where the uncertainty grows out of latent ambiguity. If the contract showed on its face that there were two farms of same name it would be a patent ambiguity. Black v. Crowther, 74 Mo.App. 480; Atkins v. Moran, 67 Mo. 100; Martin v. Kitchen, 195 Mo. 477; Roden v. Helm, 192 Mo. 82; Turner v. Dixon, 150 Mo. 416; (3) Under the Statute of Frauds the writing as to real estate need only to be signed by the party to be charged. The proposal may be accepted by parol. R. S. 1909, sec. 2783; Martin v. Grimes, 88 Mo. 478; Smith v. Wilson, 160 Mo. 657. If memorandum is signed by the party to be charged the acceptance may be by parole. Black v. Crowther, 74 Mo.App. 480.
Plaintiff recovered judgment against the defendant for $ 10,160 as damages for the breach of his alleged contract to purchase and pay for a farm. Defendant has appealed.
The case was here on a former appeal and is reported in 188 S.W. 79.
The plaintiff, in writing, leased to J. H. Lipscomb of Kansas City a farm of about 800 acres at Aullville, Lafayette County, in this State, for a term of three years ending on March 1, 1911. In the same writing she gave Lipscomb an option on the land at $ 36,000, and gave him also the power to sell the farm any time during the lease, he to have all excess over that sum. The evidence on both sides shows that said farm was sometimes called the "Jo Shelby farm," and sometimes called the "Anderson farm."
Defendant was a resident of Kansas City, but spent much of his time looking after his live stock interests in Texas. He had a secretary and financial agent, R. B. Thornton, in Kansas City, who paid his accounts and furnished defendant's family with money from defendant's funds as they needed it. Lipscomb took the defendant and defendant's daughter over the farm to inspect it. He also took Thornton to see it. Lipscomb testified that he was paying Thornton a commission in the matter. There is no evidence in the case to indicate that defendant knew that his agent Thornton was in the pay of the other side.
We will now set out the correspondence between the parties, giving all the contents of the letters so far as they are material here, and leaving out the remainder.
Defendant objected to each and all of those documents as evidence, on the ground that they did not constitute a contract on the part of the defendant to purchase the land. The objections were overruled.
A few days after the date of said telegram the defendant came home, but refused to proceed with the deal.
At the close of plaintiff's evidence, and again at the close of all the...
To continue reading
Request your trial