Sherer v. Trowbridge

• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
• Writing for the Court: C. Allen J.
• Citation: Sherer v. Trowbridge, 135 Mass. 500 (Mass. 1883)
• Decision Date: 07 September 1883
• Parties: Charlotte M. Sherer v. J. B. Trowbridge

135 Mass. 500

Charlotte M. Sherer v. J. B. Trowbridge

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

September 7, 1883

Middlesex. Contract for breach of the following agreement dated April 7, 1882, and signed by the defendant "Received of Mrs. C. M. Sherer twenty-five ($ 25.00) in part payment for house and underpinning now occupied by me on Walnut Street, the said house and foundations to be one hundred and twenty-five dollars ($ 125.00), the balance to be paid for said house and moved at five days' notice. I also agree to sell one-half acre of land, adjoining G. F Kimball's lot on east, and running due east, for three hundred dollars ($ 300.00), the same to be secured by mortgage on house and lot."

Trial in the Superior Court, before Aldrich, J., who reported the case for the determination of this court, in substance as follows:

It was admitted that G. F. Kimball owned no land adjoining the defendant's land; but Ellen P. Kimball owned three lots of land, and the defendant owned a tract of land of several acres east of and adjoining all of said lots of Ellen P. Kimball; and the plaintiff's husband, who acted as her agent in making the contract, testified that he knew of no lot known as G. F. Kimball's lot.

The plaintiff offered to prove that the defendant and the plaintiff's husband went upon land which she claimed was intended to be described in said agreement, and the defendant showed him the easterly boundary of one of said lots of Ellen P. Kimball, supposed by them to be G. F. Kimball's lot but not generally known as such, which was marked by stone bounds, and a piece of land adjoining it on the east, as the land to be sold, and which was a part of said larger tract of land owned by the defendant; that the defendant showed him the northerly line of said tract (which the plaintiff contended was intended to be described) by marked trees; that he showed the southerly line as bounded upon a private way, and they then made the contract, and afterwards measured off about two hundred feet to see how far said tract would extend east. But the judge excluded the evidence offered; and ruled that the contract, so far as it purported to be a contract for the sale of land, was within the statute of frauds, and that it contained no sufficient description of the land therein mentioned, and did not in itself or by reference to any other writing contain the means of describing or identifying the boundaries of the piece of...