Case Name: John T. Brown, plaintiff in error, vs. Samuel Hayes, defendant in error
Court: Supreme Court of Georgia
Jurisdiction: Georgia
Decision Date: 1864-03
Citations: 33 Ga. Supp. 136
Docket Number: 
Parties: John T. Brown, plaintiff in error, vs. Samuel Hayes, defendant in error.
Judges: 
Reporter: Georgia Reports
Volume: 33 Suppl.
Pages: 136–141

Head Matter:
John T. Brown, plaintiff in error, vs. Samuel Hayes, defendant in error.
1. To entitle a party to the specific performance of a contract, he must show that he has been in no default in failing to perform the agreement on his part, and that he has taken all proper steps towards such performance.
2. Possession of land under a contract for rent, cannot be claimed as a part performance of a contract for the purchase of such land.
3. Where a contract for the sale of land is made with complainant and another, specific performance will not be decreed in favor of the former alone, unless some special reason be‘shown therefor.
4. In cases of waste, injunctions are allowed as a matter of course.
Motion to dissolve injunction in Sumter Superior Court, decided by Judge Eichard H. Clark, at Chambers, on the 29th December, 1863.
On the 28th of November, 1863, John T. Brown filed a bill in equity in Sumter Superior Court, against Samuel Hayes, in which he alleged that some time in the month of December, 1862, complainant rented from the defendant for the year 1863, a plantation in the twenty-seventh district of originally Lee county, but then said county of Sumter, containing in the aggregate, twelve hundred and fifteen acres more or less, and consisting of lots numbers one hundred and thirty-one, one hundred and thirty-two, one hundred and nine, one hundred and forty, one hundred and forty-one, and one hundred and three, and that at the time of renting, it was agreed between complainant and defendant that if the latter should desire to buy the land after trying it, that he should have the privilege of doing so at the price of $6 00 per' acre, and that if he did not purchase the land he should pay complainant two hundred and fifty bushels of corn for the rent of the plantation during the year 1863. The bill also alleged that pursuant to this contract complainant went into the possession of the land, and about the 20th of May, 1863, the parties agreed upon the purchase of the plantation, complainant still being in possession, and, pursuant to such contract of purchase, the complainant executed and delivered to the defendant a note or obligation of which the following is a copy, to-wit:
“Sixty days after date, I promise to pay Samuel Hayes or bearer, eight thousand dollars in John Terrell tobacco, at one dollar and fifty cents per pound, to be delivered in Atlanta or Americus, at the option of said Hayes, on the 20th of July next,, or so soon thereafter as it can be shipped, value received.
“20th of May, 1863. ¡
(Signed) “J. T. Brown,
“John V. Price, security.”'
The bill further stated that, at the time of the trade, the tobacco specified in the note was in Lynchburg, Virginia, which the defendant well knew, and that in the latter part of August, 1863, complainant went to Lynchburg to attend to the shipping of the tobacco, but failed to get it shipped through on account of a raid of the enemies of the Confederate States upon the railroad, and that owing to the fact that the public enemy held possession of a part of the railroad between Lynchburg, Virginia, and Americus, Georgia, together with the obstruction of transportation caused by the military pressure upon the other portions of the railroad, it was wholly impracticable, if not impossible, to obtain transportation for the tobacco. The bill further alleged, that complainant, on or about the first of November, 1863, tendered to the defendant ten boxes of John Terrell tobacco, netting ten hundred and eighty pounds, and proposed and offered to deliver in three days the whole amount of the tobacco in a different brand and out of as good or better tobacco than the John Terrell brand, all of which the defendant refused to accept, saying that he would not receive any of the tobacco until it had all arrived, and that it must be of the same quality. The complainant also alleged that about the 12th of September, 1863, the defendant executed a deed to the complainant for said land, dated the 31st of August, 1863, and delivered the same to Hon. James J. Scarborough, as an escrow, to be handed to complainant upon delivery of said tobacco, and that being wholly unable, for the causes before stated, to get the tobacco shipped for delivery to defendant, complainant tendered to defendant on the 21st of November, 1863, the sum of $8,000 00, with interest from the 20th of July, 1863, and demanded the note on him and Price, and a deed to the laud, all of which defendant refused.
The bill prayed an injunction restraining the defendant from disturbing complainant’s possession of the land, and the sale thereof by defendant, and that he be compelled by decree to accept the sum tendered in the bill, and before the filing of the same, and make a deed for the land to the complainant.
On the 26th of November, 1863, the injunction was granted as prayed for.
The defendant filed his answer to the bill denying that he •ever rented the land to complainant, but alleging that it was rented to complainant and John V. Price jointly. The answer also sets up that when defendant received a note or obligation for the tobacco, he received it from Price, and was assured by Price that most of the tobacco was then in Atlanta, Georgia. Defendant denies that complainant was ever put in possession of the land pursuant to or with any sort of reference to a contract of purchase, but was placed there solely as the tenant of defendant for the year 1863. He also alleges that the John Terrell tobacco was worth $2 00 per pound on the 20th July, 1863. He gives the following as a true copy of the note, to-wit:
“ Americus, May 20th, 1863.
“Due Samuel Hayes eight thousand dollars for his settlement of land, containing twelve hundred acres, the place now in the possession of John T. Brown, to be paid in tobacco of the John Terrell brand, of good merchantable tobacco, at one dollar and fifty cents per pound; the tobacco to be delivered in Americus or Atlanta, as the said Hayes may elect, in sixty days, or as soon as the tobacco can be shipped from Lynchburg, Virginia, for value received. “ J. T. Brown,
“ John V. Price.”
He also insists that the facts connected with the alleged contract of purchase are as follows: A few days previous to said 20th of May, 1863, Price told defendant that he could sell his land for $8,000 00, payable in tobacco at $1 50 per pound, and that the tobacco was really worth $2 00 per pound; and upon being assured that most of the tobacco was in Atlanta already, and that the balance would be there in a few days, he accepted the paper without specially examining it, and agreed to the arrangement with the expectation that the tobacco would be forthcoming according to the contract, and that he could use it through the blockade, in England, in the purchase of some machinery that he desired in his •foundry and shops. Pie admits the tender of ten boxes of Terrell tobacco, but denies that it was merchantable, and he produced three affidavits showing that it was damaged, unsound, and worth greatly less than what good tobacco of that brand would sell for in market. Good tobacco of that brand was worth from $2 50 to $3 00 per pound. He denies that transportation was obstructed between Lynch-burg and Americus for more than ten days by any railroad route. He meets the prayer for specific performance by an allegation that the contract, even as complainant sets it up), is void, according to the provisions of the statute of frauds. He also alleges in his answer, by way of cross-bill, that complainant, in violation of an express agreement between the parties, had cut and hauled o0' a large quantity of wood from the land, and was still committing waste by so doing, and prayed that he might be restrained, by injunction, from committing further waste on the land.
Upon the coming in of the answer, and the production of affidavits, and argument had upon a motion to dissolve the injunction previously granted, the presiding Judge passed an order dissolving the injunction against Hayes, and granting an injunction against Brown, restraining him from all acts of waste on the premises in dispute.
To this order Brown filed exceptions, and prosecutes the writ of error in this case to reverse the decision of the Judge below.
James J. Scarborough and Willis A. Hawkins, for plaintiff in error.
T. C. Sullivan, N. A. Smith and H. K. McCay, for defendant in error.

Opinion:
By the Court
Lyon, J.,
delivering the opinion.
In general, it may be stated that, to entitle a party to a specific performance, he must show that he has been in no default in not having performed the agreement, and that he has taken all proper step>s, on his part, towards the performance: Story's Eq., 771. In this case, the complainant not only had not performed any part of his agreement, but he had not offered to do so, or taken any steps towards its performance, although more than six months had elapsed from the agreement to the filing of the bill, when, by its terms, it was to be performed in sixty days. It is true he had tendered ten boxes of the specific tobacco, of an inferior quality, and offered to make up the balance in a dif fereut brand, but this was not the contract. It is also true that he long subsequently tendered the amount in money, but tobacco then, instead of being only worth $1 50 per pound, was worth from $2 50 to $3 00. This was not the contract. Nor had the complainant gone into the possession of the land under an agreement for its purchase, but under a contract for rent. Neither was the contract for its sale with the complainant, but Avith the complainant and another. The injunction Avas, for these reasons, properly dissolved.
The cutting and carrying off' of wood from the land by the complainant amounted to a waste, and in cases of Avaste, injunctions are allowed as a matter of course: Smith vs. City Council of Rome, 19 Georgia, 89; Markham vs. Brown et al., decided at Atlanta, July Term, 1863.
Judgment reversed.