Howison v. Bartlett

• Decision Date: 15 November 1904
• Citation: 37 So. 590,141 Ala. 593
• Parties: HOWISON v. BARTLETT ET AL.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

37 So. 590

141 Ala. 593

HOWISON v. BARTLETT ET AL.

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 15, 1904

Appeal from Chancery Court, Bibb County; Thomas H. Smith Chancellor.

Bill by Arthur S. Bartlett and others against Allen P. Howison. From a decree for plaintiffs, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

The bill in this case was filed to have specifically enforced the performance of a contract for the sale of land and timber in said lands. The facts, as averred in the bill upon which the relief is sought, are sufficiently shown in the opinion. The defendant demurred to the bill upon several grounds, but the substance of the demurrers which are insisted upon is sufficiently shown in the opinion, and the demurrers need not, therefore, be set out at length. The defendant also moved to dismiss the bill for the want of equity. Upon the submission of the cause on the motion to dismiss the bill for want of equity and upon the demurrers the chancellor rendered a decree overruling said motion and the demurrers.

Pettus Jeffries & Partridge, for appellant.

Ellison & Thompson, for appellees.

SHARPE J.

Specific performance is sought of a contract for the sale of lands and timber interests in lands, which contract, according to the bill, exists by virtue of an option to purchase given by defendant, and an acceptance thereof by complainants Bartlett, Roberson, and Ensign, whose property rights thereby acquired have been assigned to the complainant corporation. The contract which gave the option was embodied in a writing executed May 30, 1901, which, in addition to the optional contract, stipulated for the immediate sale by defendant to Bartlett, Roberson, and Ensign of lands other than those here involved, and for a survey of those lands, to be made "by a competent surveyor to be mutually agreed upon." Following that and other stipulations respecting those other lands was the following, which relates to the land interests in controversy: "Said first party, in consideration of the premises, hereby gives to second party an option to purchase two other tracts of timber land and timber rights or either of said parcels; one known as the Active tract consisting of about three thousand acres more or less, in the vicinity of Active, Bibb county, Ala., and the other known as the Trio tract consisting of about five thousand acres situated near Trio, in said county and state and constituting all the virgin growth long leaf yellow pine timber lands and rights owned by first party in T. 22, R 11-10 & 9, east of Cahaba river, at the price of six dollars (6.00) per acre, said option to be...