King v. Raab
Decision Date | 16 April 1904 |
Citation | 99 N.W. 306,123 Iowa 632 |
Parties | R. K. KING, Appellant, v. JOHN RAAB AND JOHANNA RAAB |
Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Blackhawk District Court.--HON. A. S. BLAIR, Judge.
JOHN Raab leased the west half of lots 1 and 2 in block 8 in Garrison and Dean's Addition in Cedar Falls to the Cedar Falls Brick & Tile Company for the term of five years from January 1, 1897, at the monthly rental of $ 12. Contained in the lease was an option in these words: "It is further agreed that said Cedar Falls Brick & Tile Co. shall have the privilege of buying said premises at any time during said term for the sum of sixteen hundred and fifty dollars, and said first party, upon payment of said sum, hereby agrees to convey said premises by warranty deed with the usual covenants, to said second party or its assigns." In 1898 the city council of Cedar Falls caused the street on which the lots about to be paved at a cost of $ 321.60 for which a certificate was issued, a part of which has been paid by the defendant. This lease, with all benefits thereunder; was assigned to the plaintiff May 10, 1899, and on the 4th day of April, 1900, he served on Raab a written notice of his election to purchase by virtue of the option, tendering the amount named in the contract and demanding a deed. As the defendant refused to comply, this action for specific performance was brought shortly afterwards. The district court entered a decree as prayed, with the additional requirements that plaintiff reimburse defendant for the amount paid on the paving certificate and assume that part unpaid. The plaintiff appeals.
Affirmed.
William H. Merner for appellant.
J. C Scott, V. Lyngby and Henningway & Martin for appellees.
It must be assumed at the outset that plaintiff is entitled to a specific performance of the contract. The district court so decreed, and, as defendants have not appealed, our decision cannot be any less favorable to them. Smith v. King 88 Iowa 105, 55 N.W. 88; West v. West, 90 Iowa 41 57 N.W. 639; McWhirter v. Crawford, 104 Iowa 550, 72 N.W. 505. For this reason all the defenses interposed and somewhat elaborately argued are to be disregarded, save that with relation to the assessment of the cost of paving the street on which the lots abutted.
The lease containing the option permitting the purchase of the land at any time during the term of five years took effect January 1, 1897, the paving was done at a cost of $ 321.60 in 1898, and the option exercised in 1900. This option contained in the lease was equivalent to a continuing offer to sell, to which the notice of the election to purchase was an acceptance, and the two constituted a completed contract of sale as of the date of such notice. Willard v. Tayloe, 75 U.S. 557, 8 Wall. 557 (19 L.Ed. 501).
The adequacy of the price when the lease was executed is not questioned. And the authorities cited by both parties are to the effect that any change in the value of the property or the price occurring subsequently without fault of either party will excuse neither from compliance with the contract. Thus, in Falls v. Carpenter, 1 Devereux & Battle Eg., N.C. 237 (28 Am. Dec. 613), with reference to increase in value, the court said: And it was observed by Field, Jr., in Willard v. Tayloe, supra, that: In that case it was held that payment was to be in the currency constituting a legal tender when the contract was entered into, rather than greenbacks, subsequently made legal tender by an act of Congress. See, also, Low v. Treadwell, 12 Me. 441; Young v. Wright, 4 Wis. 144 (65 Am. Dec. 303); Pomeroy Specific Performance, sections 195, 322. The same principle was announced in Hale v. Wilkinson, 62 Va. 75, 21 Gratt. 75, where the purchase price stipulated was $ 6,000 in Confederate currency. At the time of the tender this was worth but $ 385 in currency of the United States. As no delay of the vendee had exposed the vendor to this collapse in the consideration, the change in value was held not to afford any defense. But in neither line of decisions were changes of values occasioned by the involuntary acts of either party.
Here the improvement of the street was directed by the town council, and the payment therefor by the owner, in order to protect the property from tax sale, compelled. It was in the nature of a compulsory improvement of the premises, and, too, one which the parties cannot be held to have anticipated in entering into the agreement. True knowledge of a municipality's power to pave its streets is to be imputed, but the exercise of this power in the smaller cities and towns of the state has been of such rare occurrence that parties contracting for the sale of property abutting on the streets ought not to be held to have had in mind possible improvements of this character. As we understand the record, there had been no paving in Cedar Falls at the time the lease was executed, and this lot abuts on a side street, and not on one of the main thoroughfares. The defendant has been compelled to expend a large sum of money in enhancing the value of this lot. He cannot be said to have contracted with reference to its changed condition, and we think the court was warranted in imposing equitable terms as a condition to specific performance. It is suggested that on the same ground payment made for a sidewalk might be added to the price stated in an option, but ordinarily the cost of such an improvement is not so large that its payment and loss can be said to be a hardship. Moreover, sidewalks, permanent and temporary, are so common that the owner may have been held to have contracted with respect to the possibility of being required to lay them at any time. The right to impose conditions where there has been a change of circumstances for which neither party can be blamed has often been recognized.
In Willard v. Tayloe, supra, the owner of property had leased property for ten years with an option to the lessee to purchase at a stated price. A year before the lease expired but after the Civil War had been in progress some time, the lessee elected to purchase, and tendered the stipulated price in legal tender treasury notes of the United States. The war had the effect of retiring gold and silver coin from general use in commercial transactions, and legal tender notes had become the ordinary medium of exchange, though worth but about fifty cents on the dollar of standard coin. The tender was refused by Tayloe, and thereupon Willard brought suit for specific performance. The treasury notes had by law been made legal tender, and, if Willard had bought the property on a coin basis, upon...
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