McMahon v. Plumb

• Decision Date: 10 November 1914
• Citation: McMahon v. Plumb, 88 Conn. 547, 92 A. 113 (Conn. 1914)
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: McMAHON v. PLUMB.

92 A. 113

88 Conn. 547

McMAHON

v. PLUMB.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Nov. 10, 1914.

Appeal from District Court of Waterbury; Charles E. Meigs, Deputy Judge.

Action for specific performance by Thomas J. McMahon against Burton H. Plumb. Judgment for the plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded.

The complaint alleges that: On October 18, 1910, the plaintiff and defendant entered into a written contract (Exhibit A) for the purchase and sale of a lot of land described in the contract as "Lot No. 1 on map of lots at Walnut Beach and filed at the town clerk's office at Milford, Conn., to which reference may be had for a more particular description of said lot"; that this lot has a frontage of 100 feet on Milford Point Road and 90 feet on Beach avenue, its opposite sides being equal and parallel; that he had carried out the terms of the contract, and the defendant had not executed the deed of said lot as agreed. Upon his complaint he claimed a decree for a specific performance of the contract and for $500 damages.

The defendant's answer admitted the execution of the contract, denied that the lot was as described in the complaint, and that the plaintiff had performed his part of the contract, and denied that the defendant had not executed the conveyance as agreed.

In a special defense the defendant pleaded that the lot described in the contract had a frontage of 100 feet on Milford Point Road and 30 feet on Beach avenue; that the plaintiff had paid the consideration of the contract and had refused to accept the deed of the same which the defendant had tendered him and was ready to redeliver to him. The plaintiff replied, admitting the tender and his refusal to accept the same, and denied the other allegations of the special defense.

The court rendered judgment for the plaintiff, finding all the allegations of the complaint true, and adjudging that the defendant execute and deliver to the plaintiff a warranty deed of said lot, 100 feet on Milford Point Road and 90 feet on Beach avenue, free from all incumbrances.

The court made a finding of facts on the appeal as follows: Before the execution of Exhibit A, the plaintiff and defendant met on the premises, and the defendant offered to sell to the plaintiff, and then pointed out the lot described in the complaint, and the plaintiff agreed to purchase the same for $225, to be paid in installments according to a written contract to be subsequently executed by the parties, and thereafter Exhibit A was executed and delivered pursuant to this agreement.

About a month or six weeks after the plaintiff purchased the land, the defendant prepared a rough sketch of his land at Walnut Beach and subdivided it into nine 30-foot lots fronting on Beach avenue and numbered from 1 to 9. No map of these lots, or of the defendant's land at Walnut Beach, or of lot No. 1 were ever on file in the town clerk's office at Milford, and no map or sketch was shown the plaintiff by the defendant until he demanded the deed, when the defendant showed him said sketch of these premises containing lot No. 1, having a frontage of 30 feet on Beach avenue. When the plaintiff had fully paid for the lot, he demanded a deed of the same, and the defendant tendered him a deed of a lot with a frontage of 30 feet on Beach avenue, which the plaintiff refused to accept.

James A. Peasley and Clayton L. Klein, both of Waterbury, for appellant.

Michael J. Byrne, of Waterbury, for appellee.

WHEELER, J. (after stating the facts as above). The claim for a correction of the finding as to the size of the lot pointed out by the defendant to the plaintiff is without merit.

The objections to the testimony of Mrs. Phelan upon the ground that the defendant cannot be bound by her statements made to the plaintiff were not well taken. Her agency was fully established by the evidence.

The question asked of the defendant by his counsel, "How much did you pay for the whole tract?" should have been admitted for what it was worth as relevant evidence of the fair market value of the tract of which lot No. 1 was a part.

The ruling was not a material error, since better evidence of the market value of this tract and of lot No. 1 was easily available and evidently was before the court, since it has found from the evidence of defendant's witnesses the fair market value of a lot 30 feet on Beach avenue and 100 feet on Milford Point Road to be between $200 and $250.

Complaint is made of the exclusion of the question asked the defendant on his direct examination, "Have you sold the other lots?" The other lots referred to the tract of which lot No. 1, as claimed by the defendant, was a part. The question was claimed for the purpose of showing the good faith of the defendant. He now claims the evidence was admissible, because the answer might have shown that the sale of the land made it impossible to decree specific performance of a contract to sell a lot with a frontage on Beach avenue of 90 feet. No such claim was made on the trial, and it is now too late to make it.

Error is assigned that the court has found without evidence the average depth and width of lot No. 1, and that the legal title to it was at the time of the trial in the defendant. These were legitimate inferences from the facts in evidence.

Upon the trial the defendant claimed that the facts did not warrant a judgment decreeing specific performance of Exhibit A, but that the judgment should be for the defendant. The foundation of both claims was that the land was so indefinitely described in the contract as to make it unenforceable in equity. The description of the land conveyed in Exhibit A was:

"Lot No. 1 on map of lots at Walnut Beach and filed in the town clerk's office at Milford, Connecticut."

Reasonable certainty in the description is an indispensable prerequisite for the enforcement by way of specific performance of a contract to convey land. Hurd v. Hotchkiss, 72 Conn. 472, 480, 45 Atl. 11. And the element of certainty is a rule of equity equally applicable, whether the contract be verbal or written. Waterman on Spec. Perf. (Ed. 1881) § 254.

The description is sufficiently definite whenever it is reasonably certain from the contract itself, or can be made certain through reference to record, contract, map, or fact, by resort to extraneous evidence thereof, whether oral or written. Hodges v. Kowing, 58 Conn. 12, 18 Atl. 979, 7 L. R. A. 87; Nichols v. Johnson, 10 Conn. 192; Hurley v. Brown, 98 Mass. 545, 96 Am. Dec. 671; Eaton et al. v. Wilkins et al., 163 Cal. 242, 127 Pac. 71; Romans v. Langevin, 34 Minn. 312, 25 N. W. 638; Troup v. Troup, 87 Pa. 149; Colerick et al. v. Hooper, 3 Ind. 316, 56 Am. Dec. 505; Beach, Eq. Jur. § 583; 36 Cyc. 593. Evidence would therefore have been admissible to prove the contents of the map referred to in Exhibit A, and thus, by reference to the map, lot No. 1 might have been identified and the description of the lot made certain. But no such map was on...