Opinion ID: 1382275
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The resulting agreement was sufficiently definite for enforcement by specific performance.

Text: Defendants contend that any contract resulting from defendants' offer and plaintiff's acceptance was not a binding contract capable of specific enforcement because all of the elements essential to a contract were not agreed upon by the parties in that the security device was not agreed upon; that without this essential element no binding time sale contract came into existence; and that that element [could not] be supplied by the court. It is true, as contended by defendants, that this sale was to be on deferred payments, with the result that plaintiff did not have the right to pay cash (as in Phillips v. Johnson, 266 Or. 544, 514 P.2d 1337 (1973)), and that the parties did not agree upon a security device. Defendants say that in Phillips this court held that an earnest money contract for the sale of land was not enforceable unless the type of security device to be in the final contract was agreed upon in that preliminary writing and that this requirement was also implicitly recognized by this court in Howard v. Thomas, 270 Or. 6, 526 P.2d 552 (1974). In Phillips v. Johnson, supra, it appears (266 Or. at 556, 514 P.2d at 1343) that the parties had not only not agreed in their earnest money agreement upon the terms of security provisions, but that there had been no agreement whether the sale was to be consummated by a deed (or by deed, note and mortgage) or by a land sale contract and the purchaser had the option to pay in cash. Also (as noted at 557, 514 P.2d at 1344), there was no agreement under which plaintiffs would be entitled to require defendants to accept installment payments over a period of time. Thus, the absence of agreed security provisions was not the primary problem in that case. Under those facts, we reversed the decree of a trial court granting specific performance of the earnest money agreement by requiring performance of a land sale contract (including provisions for future installment payments) but required specific performance by the entry of a decree conditioned upon payment of the purchase price in full and in cash, as the purchaser had the right to do under the terms of the earnest money agreement. On the other hand, in this case plaintiff, as the purchaser, did not have the right to make full payment in cash, under the terms of the offer accepted by him, but the defendants, as the sellers, were required to accept 29 percent as a down payment and the balance by installment payments over a period of five years, with interest at eight percent. In Howard v. Thomas, 270 Or. 6, 526 P.2d 552 (1974), the earnest money agreement provided for a down payment and for installment payments at an agreed rate of interest. Defendants contended there were various necessary items which were not included in the earnest money agreement, including failure to delineate the type of security agreement to be used in the sale. Under those facts the court affirmed a decree for specific performance requiring execution not only of a standard warranty deed, but also of a security agreement in the form of a standard printed form note and mortgage. In reaching that decision this court (at 9-10, 526 P.2d at 555) distinguished its previous decision in Phillips v. Johnson, supra, and went on to hold (at 12-13, 526 P.2d 552): A reading of the record indicates that the defendants decided to attempt to withdraw from the sale, not because of the uncertainty of the terms of the sale, but for other reasons. We believe that the earnest money receipt was sufficiently definite and certain to justify specific performance. The problems of any consequence which seemed to bother defendants at the time of trial were, in our opinion, resolved in favor of defendants by the decree of the court. The law is well established that the court, under proper circumstances, may in its decree providing for specific performance fill in any `gaps' appearing in the contract. As Professor Williston states: `If there is sufficient intent expressed to make a legally valid contract, a court of equity can make certain by its decree, within reasonable limits, subordinate details of performance which the contract itself does not state.   ' 11 Williston on Contracts (3d ed) 814, § 1424. Similarly, in this case, it appears that defendants' decision to withdraw from the sale was not because of uncertainty with the terms of the security provisions, as now urged by them on this appeal. We also believe that the terms as stated in defendants' written offer, as accepted by plaintiff, resulted in a contract which was sufficiently definite and certain to justify specific performance. Under the facts and circumstances of this case, the absence of agreement upon terms of security provisions was a gap in subordinate details of performance of such a nature as to be properly made certain by a decree of specific performance in a court of equity. As in Howard v. Thomas, supra, the decree of the trial court required the parties to sign a standard printed form document. In this case the document to be signed by both parties under the decree of the trial court is in the form of a printed land sale contract on installment payments, with standard form security provisions, [8] as compared with a printed mortgage, with standard security provisions, in Howard v. Thomas, supra.