Hodges v. Kowing

• Decision Date: 15 April 1889
• Citation: 18 A. 978,58 Conn. 12
• Parties: HODGES v. KOWING et ux.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

18 A. 978

58 Conn. 12

HODGES

v. KOWING et ux.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

April 15, 1889.

Appeal from superior court, Fairfield county; F ENN, Judge.

Suit by P. H. Hodges against E. W. Sowing and wife for specific performance of a contract for sale of land. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants appeal.

D. B. Lockwood and E. W. Seymour, for appellants. T. W. Wheeler and H. J. Curtis, for appellee.

BEARDSLEY, J. On the 17th day of August, 1887, the defendants entered into the following contract with the plaintiff: "Stratford, August 17th, 1887. We agree to purchase of P. H. Hodges his place in Stratford, Conn., containing fifteen acres, more or less, for the sum of nine thousand five hundred dollars; to pay six thousand cash, and three thousand five hundred on bond and mortgage for one year; to take title immediately, and possession on the first of January, 1888; and have paid him one hundred dollars on account. EDWIN W. KOWING. ELIZA KOWING." No writing relating to the contract was signed by the plaintiff. The court below, upon the petition of the plaintiff, decreed that the defendants should specifically perform the contract, from which decree they appeal to this court. They claim that under the statute of frauds the plaintiff was not bound by the contract, not having signed any memorandum of it, and hence that it should not, in equity at least, be enforced against them, and make this claim the ground of one of their reasons of appeal. The statute requires only that the written agreement shall be "signed by the party to be charged therewith." The defendants rely upon certain cases as authority for their claim, and among others upon the cases of Benedict v. Lynch, 1 Johns. Ch. 370, and Lawrenson v. Butler, 1 Schoales & L. 13. Both of these cases are in accord with the claim of the defendants; but the former case is opposed to the numerous decisions in the state of New York on the same subject, and the latter case to nearly all the English decisions. In the case of Clason v. Bailey, 14 Johns. 484, Chancellor KENT, after reviewing the New York decisions, says that "it is sufficient if the agreement be signed by the party to be charged." In the same opinion he reviews the English decisions up to that time, and adds: "There is nothing to disturb this strong and united current of authority but the observation of Lord REDESDALE in Lawrenson v. Butler, 1 Schoales & L. 13, who thought that the contract ought to be mutual, and that if one party could not enforce it the other ought not." The authority of Lawrenson v. Butler seems not to have been recognized in England. The more recent decisions in that country are referred to in 1 Benj. Sales, §§ 254, 255. There is still some conflict in the decisions in this country, but the weight of authority is that the statute of frauds is satisfied by the signature to the contract of the party sought to be charged only, whether the suit to enforce it be at law or in equity, and whether it relates to the sale of real or personal estate. Clason v. Bailey, 14 Johns. 484; McCrea v. Purmort, 16 Wend. 460; Richards v. Green, 23 N. J. Eq. 536; Railroad Corp. v. Evans, 6 Gray, 33; Sutherland v. Briggs, 1 Hare, 34. We think that there is not sufficient ground for this reason of appeal.

Another reason of appeal is "that the specific execution of the contract should not have been decreed, because it is too uncertain to be enforced, inasmuch as it could not be understood from the writing itself without the necessity of resorting to parol proof." No objection seems to have been made to the contract when it was offered in evidence, and therefore the objection now made, that it is void upon its face, comes too late to be entitled to consideration. But the claim, if seasonably made, would have been unfounded. The defendants do not specify in their reasons of appeal, or in their brief, the particulars in which they claim that the contract is deficient in certainty. We suppose their claim to be that the statement of the location of the land is too indefinite to satisfy the requirement of the statute of frauds. If the only description of the land had been fifteen acres, more or less, in the town of Stratford," there would have been force in this claim, though according to the decisions of courts of high authority such a description might have been applied to the land intended by it by extrinsic evidence. In the case of Hurley v. Brown, 98 Mass. 545, the only description in the contract of the property agreed to be conveyed was "a house and lot on Amity street." The court admitted evidence that there was only one house and lot on Amity street which the defendant had a right to convey, and that the parties had been in treaty for the purchase and sale of it, and that the subject-matter of the contract might be thus identified. See, also, Mead v. Parker, 115 Mass. 413; Robeson v. Hornbaker, 3 N. J. Eq. 60. In the present case the court finds that the...