Worth v. Worth

• Decision Date: 31 January 1877
• Citation: 84 Ill. 442,1877 WL 9407
• Parties: EVAN WORTHv.MARGARET P. WORTH et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

84 Ill. 442

1877 WL 9407 (Ill.)

EVAN WORTH

v.MARGARET P. WORTH et al.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

January Term, 1877.

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of Logan county; the Hon. LYMAN LACEY, Judge, presiding.

Messrs. HAY, GREENE & LITTLER, for the appellant.

Messrs. LYNCH, HOBLIT & FOLEY, for the appellees.

Mr. JUSTICE CRAIG delivered the opinion of the Court:

This was a bill in equity, to enforce the specific performance of an alleged parol contract made by a father, the defendant in the bill, to convey to his son, Otho Worth, a certain tract of land, consisting of eighty acres, in consideration that Otho Worth would take possession of, improve and cultivate the land. The complainants in the bill were the widow and only heir of Otho Worth, he having died intestate before the suit was instituted.

The defendant denied the making of an agreement to convey the land, and set up the Statute of Frauds.

Evan Worth, the defendant, bought the land in 1864. It was then unimproved. Soon thereafter, Otho Worth commenced improving it, which was continued until it was all fenced and broke, and a house built, when, in the last part of 1867 or the beginning of the year 1868, he married, and moved upon the premises, where he continued to reside and improve the land until he died, on the 6th day of January, 1872. The improvements placed on the land, as disclosed by the evidence, by Otho Worth, were valuable, and worth from $2500 to $3000; but the question presented by the record is, whether the evidence establishes a contract, made by Evan Worth to convey the land, which a court of equity can enforce. The text books do not disagree as to the rule, that, in order to take a case out of the statute, upon the ground of part performance of a parol contract, it is not only indispensable that the acts done should be clear and definite, and referable exclusively to the contract, but the contract should also be established, by competent proofs, to be clear, definite and unequivocal in all its terms. If the terms are uncertain, or ambiguous, or not made out by satisfactory proofs, a specific performance will not (as, indeed, upon principle, it should not) be decreed. 2 Story Eq. Jur. sec. 764. This was declared to be the correct rule in Wood v. Thornly, 58 Ill. 464, upon a state of facts where the same question arose as here. See, also, Langston v. Bates, post, p. 524.

The authorities all agree that a parol contract to convey will not be decreed in a court of equity, unless it appears to be certain and definite in its terms, and established by evidence free from doubt or suspicion.

In the case under consideration, no witness has been able to testify that he ever heard the defendant and Otho Worth make an agreement in regard to the conveyance of the land. The contracting parties were not brought together by any witness, but the complainants rely entirely upon proof of declarations of the defendant, made to various parties from 1865 to 1873, to establish a contract. While we do not hold that a case may not be made out by proof of the declarations of a person, there are, however, respectable authorities that go that far; yet we are not satisfied that the evidence in this case is of that clear, definite and satisfactory character that it should be to require a court to compel, by decree, the conveyance of land. The strongest evidence in this case, and that, too, the...