Donner v. Redenbaugh
| Decision Date | 12 June 1883 |
| Citation | 16 N.W. 127,61 Iowa 269 |
| Parties | DONNER v. REDENBAUGH ET AL |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Harrison District Court.
ACTION FOR SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE. On Sunday, the twenty-first day of May, 1881, the plaintiff and defendant, John G. Redenbaugh entered into a written contract in the following words:
"This is a contract between J. G. Redenbaugh and William Donner, to show that J. G. Redenbaugh has sold his farm to William Donner for the sum of $ 15 per acre, also eighty acres at $ 12 per acre, on which contract I have received $ 100 to bind the same." The plaintiff avers that he has offered to pay, and is now ready to pay, the balance of the purchase-money, and has demanded a deed, but that the defendant has refused to make a deed, and has refused to receive the balance of the purchase-money.
He prays that the defendant be decreed to specifically perform his contract by conveying the land to him; or, in the event that the decree cannot be granted, that he have judgment against the defendant for the sum of $ 1,500 damages "in loss of purchase-money, advance in price of lands, rents and profits, and other expenses necessarily incurred by reason of the defendant's breach of contract." The matters of defense will be set out hereafter. There was a decree denying a recovery of damages, and granting a specific performance of the contract as to eighty acres, being described in the decree as the "eighty acres of grass land." The plaintiff appeals.
REVERSED.
S. H Cochran, for appellant.
Evans & Rodifer, for appellees.
No question appears to be raised in regard to the identity of the land or sufficiency of the description. The land mentioned in the contract as Redenbaugh's farm appears to be the northwest quarter of section twenty, township seventy-eight, range forty-two, west; and the tract of "eighty acres" appears to be the west half of the northeast quarter of the same section. It is true, the farm is described by the plaintiff in his petition, as set out in the abstract, as the southwest quarter of section twenty, but we infer from the evidence that it is a mistake of the printer.
The defendants in their answer averred that the contract was made on Sunday, to which the plaintiff replied that it was afterwards ratified. The ratification relied upon consists of an alleged promise to make the deed, and of the retention of the purchase-money so far as the same was paid. As to whether this would be sufficient to justify us in holding either that there was a ratification of the Sunday contract, or the making of a new one, we need not determine. If we should conclude that it would be, the plaintiff, we think, has not shown himself entitled to any relief.
The defendants averred and proved that they are husband and wife; that from a time prior to the making of the contract they occupied the northwest quarter of the northwest quarter as a homestead, and that the defendant, Mary Redenbaugh, did not join in the contract. The plaintiff endeavors to meet this position by showing that the defendant, Mary Redenbaugh, verbally assented to the contract. But it is well settled that her verbal assent did not make her a party to it. Stinson v. Richardson, 44 Iowa 373. The contract, then, so far as the homestead is concerned, is void. It follows that the court could not decree a specific performance of the entire contract.
As to whether the court could properly decree a conveyance of what was not embraced in the homestead, it is sufficient to say that it certainly could not, unless the plaintiff elected to take such conveyance, and the plaintiff not only did not so elect, but complains that the court decreed a conveyance of the tract of eighty acres. The land was purchased as a whole, and doubtless with reference to its suitability for a farm when taken together. Each part, it may be, had a value as an adjunct of the rest. As, then, the entire contract could not be specifically performed, and as the plaintiff did not ask a specific performance of a part, no specific performance can be decreed.
We come, then, to the question as to whether the plaintiff is entitled to damages. He claims that he is. His right to damages he predicates upon the alleged fact that the land has increased in value, and that lands generally have increased in value. His prayer is for "damages caused to plaintiff * * * in advance in price of land." He introduced evidence tending to show that the land in question had increased in value not less than $ 5 per acre. In his argument, he claims that he should have had judgment for $ 1,000, as the amount of the increase in value of the two hundred acres not embraced in the homestead. The rule as to the...
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