Chute v. Quincy

• Decision Date: 04 April 1892
• Citation: Chute v. Quincy, 156 Mass. 189, 30 N.E. 550 (Mass. 1892)
• Parties: CHUTE v. QUINCY et al. QUINCY et al. v. CHUTE.
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

156 Mass. 189

30 N.E. 550

CHUTE v. QUINCY et al.

QUINCY et al. v. CHUTE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Norfolk.

April 4, 1892

COUNSEL

S.W. Creech, for Chute.

E.M Parker, for Quincy and others.

OPINION

KNOWLTON J.

The plaintiff in the first case entered into a contract in writing for the purchase from the defendants of a lot of land which was one of a large number of lots held by them as trustees. The property was described in the contract as "a certain lot of land, being lot No. 23 on the plan of Charles S. Miller, dated April 10, 1890," and recorded etc. This plan showed a great number of building lots, about 800 in all, designated by numbers, with the lengths of their boundary lines given, and the number of square feet contained in each marked in plain figures. Lot No. 23 contained 9,230 square feet, but, by a mistake of the surveyor, the number marked on the plan was 3,230 square feet. The defendants' agent, in negotiating with the plaintiff, agreed to sell the lot for $430.66, determining the price by computing the value of 3,230 square feet, at 1311/3 cents per foot. It is found as a fact that the defendants made the contract under a mistake as to the contents of the lot, and in the belief that it contained only 3,230 square feet. The defendants' agent did not inform the plaintiff how he fixed the price. The plaintiff "admitted that when he examined the lot he had a copy of the above-mentioned plan, and that he noticed at the time of his negotiations with the agent that lot 23 was larger than lot 22 or lot 24, the adjacent lots on either side, and that he knew that lot 23 contained more square feet than the plan stated." The dimensions of lots 22 and 24 were plainly marked on the plan, and it is hard to believe that one buying a lot apparently for his own use, to be paid for in small installments, as the contract shows, would not so far investigate the subject, when the boundaries were pointed out to him, and when he had a copy of the plan before him, and "knew that it [the lot] contained more square feet than the plan stated," as to find out the nature and extent of the mistake, especially when the shape of the lot and the lengths of its boundary lines, and the sizes and shapes of other lots in the vicinity, were all correctly given on the plan. It is fair to presume that, before making his purchase, he had some knowledge of the prices at which the defendants were accustomed to sell lands in the vicinity. Whatever his knowledge or ignorance on this subject, he concealed from the defendants' agent his discovery of the mistake in the plan, and took a contract which described the lot merely by a reference to the plan. It may be that the plaintiff was free from fraud in the transaction,--the findings certainly do not go far enough to show that he was guilty of it. The parties were not acting under a mutual mistake, and, in the absence of proof of fraud, the cross-bill brought by the defendants in the first case, asking to have the contract reformed or delivered up and canceled, must be dismissed.

The remaining question is whether the plaintiff should have a decree for specific performance of the contract. If we assume that the contract is good at law, it does not follow that it will be specifically enforced in equity. It is a universally recognized principle that a court of equity will not decree specific performance of a contract when it would be inequitable so to do. Specific performance may be refused upon when a contract is hard and unreasonable, so that enforcement of it would be oppressive to the defendant, or where there has been misrepresentation by the plaintiff on a material point, or other unfair conduct, although it may not be sufficient to invalidate the contract, or where the defendant has by mistake not originating in mere carelessness entered into a contract different from that intended by him notwithstanding that there was no unfairness on the plaintiff's part. Adams, Eq. (5th Amer.Ed.) 195, 199; 2 Story, Eq.Jur. § 769. Says Chief Justice SHAW, in Railroad Corp. v. Babcock, 6 Metc. (Mass.) 346, 352, "A defendant, therefore, may not only show that the agreement is void by proof of fraud or duress which would avoid it at law, but he may also show that, without any gross laches of his own, he was led into a mistake, by any uncertainty or obscurity in the descriptive part of the agreement, by which he, in fact, mistook one line or one monument for another, though not misled by any misrepresentation of the other ...