Gates v. Ryan

• Decision Date: 28 September 1874
• Parties: Seymour Gates v. James Ryan
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

115 Mass. 596

Seymour Gates v. James Ryan

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

September 28, 1874

Hampden. Contract on the following agreement in writing signed by the plaintiff and defendant:

"This agreement, made this second day of December, 1871, by and between Seymour Gates of Holyoke, Hampden County Massachusetts, and James Ryan of said Holyoke, witnesseth that for the consideration hereafter expressed, and the agreement hereafter named to be performed by the said Ryan the said Gates hereby sells and transfers unto the said Ryan one yellow house, now situated on land of said Gates, in the west side of the highway that passes said Gates's homestead, being the first house south of said homestead, and also agrees to move said house from its present location into the lot of land of said Ryan on the plains (so called), in said Holyoke, the same to be moved in a workmanlike and proper manner, on or before the first day of February, 1872. In consideration whereof, the said Ryan hereby sells to the said Gates his shanty standing on land of the Holyoke and Westfield Railroad Company, near Alexander Day's, the same to be removed by the said Gates; and further, the said Ryan agrees to pay to the said Gates the sum of two hundred dollars, in four equal payments of fifty dollars per year and secure the same by mortgage upon real estate, with interest at the rate of eight per cent., and to this agreement each of said parties binds himself, his heirs and legal representatives, in the penal sum of one hundred dollars. The stone and brick under the yellow house are to belong to said Ryan, who is to draw them away, if he wishes them."

The case was submitted to the Superior Court, and after judgment for the defendant, to this court, upon the following agreed facts:

The execution of the contract is admitted. The plaintiff soon afterwards commenced to move the yellow house named in the contract to the land of the defendant at the place stipulated, but it fell down in the highway while in process of removal, and the plaintiff thereupon abandoned his efforts to remove it, and took the fragments and used them as his own.

The defendant in this action afterward brought a suit against the plaintiff to recover upon the same written contract, and the question of the breach of the contract was the only issue submitted to the jury. The damages were by agreement of parties assessed by the court. Evidence was submitted to the court as part of the measure of damages of the loss suffered by the plaintiff by reason of the failure of the defendant to deliver to him the house mentioned in said contract, and as showing...