Houston v. Farley

• Decision Date: 17 May 1917
• Docket Number: (No. 456.)
• Citation: 146 Ga. 822,92 S.E. 635
• Parties: HOUSTON. v. FARLEY et al.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

(146 Ga. 822)

92 S.E. 635

HOUSTON.

v.FARLEY et al.

(No. 456.)

Supreme Court of Georgia.

May 17, 1917.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error from Superior Court, Upson County; W. E. H. Searcy, Jr., Judge.

Suit by W. R. Houston against L. F. Farley and others. Judgment for defendants dismissing the petition on demurrer, and plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.

W. R. Houston and L. F. Farley entered into a verbal contract that Farley was to attend an administrator's sale and purchase thereat a described lot of land if it should sell for less than $2,000, and, if the land was purchased, to take title to himself and execute to Houston a bond conditioned to make or cause to be made to him good and suffi-cient title to the property purchased upon his compliance with certain conditions, namely, the payment in cash of the sum of $100 and the giving of his notes to Farley for the balance due, as follows: $100 in 12 months, and the balance to become due two years from the date of the contract of purchase; the deferred payments bearing interest at the rate of 8 per cent, per annum. The property was purchased by Farley for $1,441, and the administrator made a deed to him. On the next day, Houston tendered to Farley $100 in cash, and offered to deliver his promissory notes in accordance with the stipulations of the contract, and demanded a bond for title in compliance with their contract. Farley refused to execute a bond for title, and thereafter sold the property to one Andrews, who was alleged to have purchased with the full knowledge of Houston's right. Upon these allegations, Houston prays specific performance of the parol contract with Farley against the defendants. The court dismissed the petition on demurrer.

Claude Worrill, of Thomaston, for plaintiff in error.

Jas. R. Davis, of Thomaston, for defendants in error.

EVANS, P. J. (after stating the facts as above). A ground of the demurrer raises the point that the oral contract of which specific performance is sought is within the statute of frauds. The plaintiff contends that the statute does not apply to a case as alleged in the petition. He bases such contention on the dictum of the first headnote in the case of Chastain v. Smith, 30 Ga. 96, that:

"Where one person agrees, as agent, to buy land for another as his principal, and does buy it, but takes the title in his own name, this title in his hands stands affected with a resulting trust for the benefit of the principal by operation of law, and the case is not within the statute of frauds; resulting trusts being expressly excepted from the operation of the statute."

In discussing this ruling, Bleckley, C. J., said in Roughton...