Kearns v. Andree
| Decision Date | 06 January 1928 |
| Citation | 107 Conn. 181,139 A. 695 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | KEARNS v. ANDREE. |
Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, Hartford County; Thomas J Molloy, Judge.
Action by John T. Kearns against Joseph W. Andree to recover damages for alleged breach of contract by the defendant to purchase real estate from the plaintiff, brought to the court of common pleas for Hartford county, and tried to the court. Judgment for the plaintiff for $167, and appeal by the defendant. Error, and new trial ordered.
Vendor improving realty pursuant to void sale agreement, could recover reasonable compensation on purchaser's refusal to complete contract, deducting benefits accruing to himself.
Nathan A. Schatz and Louis M. Schatz, both of Hartford, for appellant.
John J. Burke, of Hartford, for appellee.
Argued before WHEELER, C.J., and MALTBIE, HAINES, HINMAN, and BANKS JJ.
The plaintiff was the owner of a lot of land at the corner of Prospect and Edwards streets in the town of East Hartford, on which stood a dwelling house then in the process of construction, but practically finished. In the rear of the land upon which this house stood, he owned other land upon which another house was located. He and the defendant entered into an oral contract, whereby, as it is stated in the finding, " the defendant agreed to purchase the house and lot at the corner of Prospect and Edwards streets at a price of $8,500; it being agreed the defendant should assume a first mortgage of $4,500, a bank mortgage, and pay $4,000 in cash." This mortgage was not then in existence, but the plaintiff promised to obtain it; there being no agreement, however, as to the identity of the mortgagee or as to its terms.
The defendant thereafter became dissatisfied with his purchase, but finally agreed to stand by the bargain, if certain alterations were made in the house, if it was finished in a certain way, and if certain trees standing upon the lot were cut down. The plaintiff proceeded to make the changes and finish the house as desired by the defendant, and to cut down the trees, and he also secured a bank mortgage upon the premises in the sum of $4,500. The defendant, however, refused to complete the purchase. The way in which the house had been finished at the defendant's request made the premises less salable, but the plaintiff finally secured a purchaser for the price of $8,250, after, to meet this purchaser's desires, he had repainted the house a different color and repapered certain rooms. The plaintiff brings this action to recover for the expenses to which he was put in order to finish the house to meet the defendant's wishes, and thereafter, to adapt it to the desires of the purchaser, and also to recover the difference between the price agreed to be paid by the defendant and that for which the house was finally sold.
The trial court reached the conclusion that the acts of the plaintiff in finishing the house were sufficient to take the case out of the statute of frauds, but that the agreement between the plaintiff and defendant was too indefinite to be enforceable, because the land sold was not sufficiently identified, and because the agreement as to the mortgage to be secured and assumed by the defendant did not specify either the identity of the mortgagee or the terms it was to contain, and it gave judgment for the plaintiff to recover the value of the trees cut and the cost of repainting and repapering to meet the desires of the ultimate purchaser.
If the trial court was right in its conclusion that the agreement was too indefinite to be enforced, it becomes of no moment whether the acts done by the plaintiff were sufficient part performance to take the case out of the statute of frauds. The finding, particularly when read in the light of the memorandum of decision made a part of it, does not present the situation with reference to the land and houses owned by the plaintiff in such a way as to afford any satisfactory basis for a review of its conclusion that the premises sold were not sufficiently described so as to make the agreement definite enough to be enforceable. But its conclusion as to the indefiniteness of the provison concerning the mortgage which the plaintiff was to secure is clearly sound. In Griffin v. Smith, 101 Conn. 219, 125 A. 465, we had before us an oral agreement for the sale of land, in which it was provided that the price was to be $2,850, of which $850 was to be paid in cash, and the balance secured by mortgage; and we there said:
In Platt v. Stonington Savings Banks, 46 Conn. 476, we had before us an agreement between a savings bank which was foreclosing a mortgage upon certain premises and a second mortgagee that, on failure of redemption, the bank would convey the land to him, and that he would pay the accrued interest on the debt, and secure the principal by a mortgage upon the real estate conveyed, without any specification of the length of time the mortgage was to run; and we said:
The case is then one where the plaintiff seeks to recover the expense and loss which he has incurred in reliance upon the performance by the defendant of an agreement unenforceable because too indefinite in its terms. That in such a case recovery may often be had admits of no doubt. Rowland v New York, N.H. & H. R. Co., 61 Conn. 103, 111, 23 A. 755, 29 Am.St.Rep. 175; Collins v. Richmond Stove Co., 63 Conn. 356, 363, 28 A. 534; Varney v. Ditmars, 217 N.Y. 223, 231, 111 N.E. 822, Ann.Cas. 1916B, 758; note, 26 L.R.A. (N. S.) 810. But the work done and the expenditures made by the plaintiff to adapt it to meet the wishes of the defendant in the instant case have been of no benefit to the latter, and his main contention is that the basis of a recovery in such cases is the benefit conferred. Several decisions might be cited in which it has been so held No doubt there are cases where, to support a recovery, it must appear that benefit has accrued to the defendant. For instance, such is the rule where a vendee of real estate has made improvements upon the land in reliance upon an oral agreement of sale and upon his own initiative, but the vendor refuses thereafter to carry out the agreement (...
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Coleman Engineering Co. v. North Am. Aviation, Inc.
...by another that he will give value for the detriment suffered.' (Note (1928) 26 Mich.L.Rev. 942, 943.) In Kearns v. Andree, 107 Conn. 181, 139 A. 695, 59 A.L.R. 599, the court allowed the plaintiff recovery for services performed at the request of the defendant, explicitly recognizing that ......
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Meaney v. Connecticut Hospital Assn., Inc.
...of the obligation of providing proper compensation to the plaintiff. See 1 G. Palmer, supra, § 1.1, p. 4; see also Kearns v. Andree, 107 Conn. 181, 187, 139 A. 695 (1928). The judgment based on the jury's award in this case, therefore, cannot be sustained. Because any right to recover damag......
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...Conn. 380, 386, 106 A. 333, we stated that an action by the contractor in such a situation was one on the contract; in Kearns v. Andree, 107 Conn. 181, 186, 139 A. 695, we treated such a case as falling within the category of those where recovery might be had on an implied contract, with re......
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Santoro v. Mack
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