Dragoo v. Dragoo
| Decision Date | 06 June 1883 |
| Citation | 15 N.W. 910,50 Mich. 573 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | DRAGOO v. DRAGOO and others. |
Although laches is not to be imputed to a minor or other person incompetent to act in his own behalf, great delay is always an important fact when it is sought to enforce a parol agreement, for time obscures and destroys evidence, even when it does not absolutely take away rights of action; and a parol contract is never to be enforced unless it is satisfactorily proved, and the older the supposed facts are when they are to be made out on the recollection of witnesses, the more they are open to doubt or suspicion, so that, even if the delay is sufficiently excused, the evidence that is to establish the case requires to be examined with unusual care and circumspection.
No court can grant specific relief on the basis of a parol contract to convey land, unless there have been important acts of part performance which raise in favor of complainant a strong equity.
Upon examination the evidence in this case is shown to be too vague, uncertain, ambiguous, and unsatisfactory to justify a decree of specific performance.
Appeal from Berrien.
Edward Bacon, for complainant.
E.M Plumpton and H.H. Coolidge, for defendants and appellants.
The purpose of this suit is to enforce an alleged oral agreement for the partition and conveyance of lands.
The parties to the agreement were John F. Dragoo and Peter Dragoo, his brother, sons of Jacob Dragoo, who died intestate in Berrien county in the year 1838, leaving seven children and one grandchild. He left a very small property, and John F. Dragoo was appointed administrator. The estate was settled without complaint, though there seems to be some dispute respecting the method of settlement; the complainant alleging that John and Peter purchased the interests of the others and took the property. In the year 1859, three parcels of land aggregating about 140 acres, were purchased and conveyed to John. The theory of the bill is that this purchase was made by John and Peter jointly, and that in or about the year 1847 an agreement was made between the brothers that the land should be divided between them by a certain line represented in part by an existing fence, and that John, who held the title for both, should convey the north half to Peter. This is denied by the defendants. It seems highly probable however, that there had been an understanding between these brothers which contemplated their occupying, improving, and owning the land jointly, and bearing jointly the expense of caring for and supporting the other children, who were nearly all minors; but what the conditions of this understanding were is not very clear. John, at the time of the supposed understanding, was a man of family, and lived upon the land. Peter was a bachelor, but in the year 1848 he was married to a woman who had a farm a few miles from the land in controversy, and went to live upon it. He died within a year thereafter, and John and the widow were appointed administrators, and settled the estate by regular proceedings.
When Peter went to live upon his wife's farm the two brothers divided between them the personal property, and defendants claim that whatever understanding had previously existed for a joint ownership or for a partition of the land was then abandoned. This is denied by complainant, and upon this claim and denial all the controversy turns. It is certain that, with the exception of a parcel in respect to which no question now arises, John always treated the land as his own, selling off some parcels of it and cultivating the remainder in his own interest, and that what remained unsold at his death has since been claimed, occupied, and used by his heirs. John died in the year 1861, and in the year 1871 complainant, who was a posthumous child, and is sole heir at law of Peter, filed this bill against the heirs of John to compel specific performance of the alleged agreement.
The circumstance that first attracts attention is that the bill is filed to set up and enforce a parol agreement for the conveyance of lands nearly a quarter of a century after it is said to have been made. In most cases this would be a conclusive objection to the relief prayed. But the delay is excused in this case by the fact that complainant only reached her majority the year...
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