Flaharty v. Blake

• Decision Date: 02 July 1887
• Citation: 44 N.J.E. 228,10 A. 158
• Parties: FLAHARTY v. BLAKE and others.
• Court: New Jersey Court of Chancery

10 A. 158

44 N.J.E. 228

FLAHARTY

v. BLAKE and others.

Court of Chancery of New Jersey.

July 2, 1887.

On bill for specific performance.

A. Flanders, for complainant. B. J. Pancoast, for defendants.

BIRD, V. C. The bill asks for the specific performance of a contract to convey lands. When the contract was made, $5 was paid in cash, and a receipt given therefor in writing showing that it was for the purchase of a certain lot. The vendor resists the specific performance on the ground of uncertainty of description. But the bill describes the lot by metes and bounds, and otherwise fixes its location with great certainty, and the answer says that that is the lot which the defendant actually agreed to sell. That seems to be certain enough. The defendant's wife refuses to join in the conveyance, and the complainant asks indemnity. I cannot conclude that the husband is at fault in this. The rule seems to be that indemnity will not be decreed in such cases, except when fraud is clearly established. Reilly v. Smith, 25 N. J. Eq. 158; Hawralty v. Warren, 18 N. J. Eq. 124. In this case the husband said, at onetime, that his wife was willing to join in the deed, but that she afterwards refused. The wife, however, says that she never consented; but, from the time she understood that her husband had made the sale, she refused to join in the deed. As the testimony stands, I cannot say that there is fraud.

Specific performance will be decreed by the husband, with costs, but without indemnity.