Page v. Higgins

• Decision Date: 05 September 1889
• Citation: 22 N.E. 63,150 Mass. 27
• Parties: PAGE v. HIGGINS.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

150 Mass. 27

22 N.E. 63

PAGE v. HIGGINS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

September 5, 1889

COUNSEL

A.D. Bosson, for plaintiff.

W.B Durant, for defendant.

OPINION

FIELD J.

This is an action of contract for the breach of covenants contained in a warranty deed of land delivered by the defendant to Anna F. Page, who has deceased, and who by will devised the land to the plaintiff. The defendant has no title to a part of the land called the "Cheever Lot," included in the description in the deed, and this constitutes the breach declared on. The bargain for the land was made with the defendant by the plaintiff, acting as agent for Anna F. Page and the plaintiff drew the deed, and it is assumed that the acts and intention of the plaintiff are to be imputed to his principal, the grantee in the deed. The defendant "introduced evidence that he was illiterate; that the deed was not read to him, and he did not and could not read it that he signed the deed supposing that it covered only the property he owned east of the stone wall spoken of in said deed." There was evidence that the parties orally agreed to buy and sell "only what the defendant owned east of the stone wall, and that the defendant relied upon the plaintiff to draw the deed according to such agreement." The defendant delivered to the plaintiff his title-deeds for this purpose. There were deeds of land east of the stone wall, but they did not include the Cheever lot. The exceptions recite that "it is not claimed by the defendant that Dr. Page did anything that was unfair. It is suggested that the explanation of the mistake perhaps is that at the time the defendant supposed that Dr. Page had already acquired the Cheever land, and that Dr. Page supposed that the defendant had acquired it, and both parties were assuming that their land came together,--the defendant assuming it came together because Dr. Page owned the Cheever place, and Dr. Page assuming that it came together because the defendant owned the Cheever place; but, without any intent whatever to enlarge or depart from the oral agreement that they had made to convey whatever it might be that the defendant owned east of the wall, this deed was framed in the way that it was by Dr. Page, honestly intending to describe just what the oral agreement had been."

The defendant has attempted to set up an equitable defense under St.1883, c. 223, § 14. This defense is that the defendant signed the deed without reading it, or having it read supposing that it had been drawn by the plaintiff according to the oral agreement to sell all the land which the defendant owned east of the stone wall, and no more, and that, if the description in the deed includes any land other than that owned by him east of the stone wall, "such description was made by accident and mistake." The court submitted the two following issues to the jury: "First. Was the description in the plaintiff's testatrix's deed, so far as it purported to convey any more than the land owned by the defendant east of the stone wall, inserted in the deed by accident or mutual mistake? Second. Did the plaintiff's testatrix and the defendant make an oral agreement prior to the execution of the deed, whereby the plaintiff's testatrix was to buy and the defendant to sell only what he owned east of the stone wall, and did they attempt to embody said agreement in said deed?" The plaintiff requested the court to instruct the jury that, "if Dr. Page [the plaintiff] supposed at the time of taking the deed that it did convey to his testatrix the Cheever lot, the jury must answer the issue as framed in the negative," and he excepted to the refusal of the court to give this instruction. There was evidence tending to show that Dr. Page intentionally drew the deed in the precise form in which it was executed, and that no words were omitted from it which he intended should be inserted, or were inserted which he intended should be omitted. The court ruled that the description in the deed included the Cheever lot, and if Dr. Page, at the time of taking the deed, supposed that it conveyed the Cheever lot, then he made no mistake in regard to the legal effect of the deed. Apparently, then, there was no accident and no mistake on the part of the plaintiff in regard to the language or the legal effect of the deed if he supposed that it conveyed the Cheever lot. A good deal of the evidence recited in the exceptions, so far as it is favorable to the defendant, tended to show, either--First, that the bargain, as both parties understood it, was to convey not any definite lot of land with the usual covenants of title, but only to convey all the land which the defendant owned east of the stone wall, whatever that might be, and that this indefinite description should be inserted in the deed, and that Dr. Page, in violation of this agreement, described the land in the deed by metes and bounds, so as to include the Cheever lot, and by his conduct induced the defendant to sign the deed as one drawn according to the agreement; or, second, that, although the parties in their negotiations described the subject-matter of the bargain as all the land owned by the defendant east of the stone wall, yet each had in mind a definite lot or lots of land, and intended that they should be defined in the deed by metes and bounds, with the usual covenants of title, and that there was an honest misunderstanding in regard to the lots which were bought and sold and were to be conveyed, and that Dr. Page drew the deed according to his understanding of the bargain, and accepted it, and paid the consideration, believing that it conformed to the agreement. So far as the evidence tended to show the first of these propositions, it tended to show fraud, actual or constructive, on the part of Dr. Page; and, so far as it tended to show the second, it tended to show that the minds of the parties never met, and that no oral contract of sale had been made, because the parties did not have the same understanding as to the subject-matter of the contract; but neither inference establishes a case of accident or of mutual mistake as to the words or the meaning of the deed. The remedy when by accident or mutual mistake a written contract does not express the actual contract of the parties is by a reformation or rectification of the writing, and this is a remedy for any party to the written contract, unless the statute of frauds prevents. The remedy when the written contract does not express the understanding of the parties on account of a mistake concerning the subject-matter of it, is by a rescission or cancellation of the written contract, and this is a remedy for any party, although an option is sometimes given to the defendant in equity to have a rectification according to the claim of the plaintiff, if he prefers it. The remedy when the execution of a written instrument has been procured by fraud is by a rescission of it, or, in some cases, by striking out the parts fraudulently inserted; but the remedy is only for the party defrauded. The law concerning the reformation of contracts on the ground of mutual mistake is well stated in Sawyer v. Hovey, 3 Allen, 331. It is...