Court Opinion

ID: 9831604
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:14:32.52234+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:36.448062
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The plaintiffs in error say: “No case has been cited by this court * * * to the effect that, where the limitation of price was fixed by the payee and the time had never been that a sale could be made at such price, the debt matured within a reasonable time after the making of the obligation” — and argue that, because the contract contained the provision' that the property should not be sold at less than $100 per lot, it is a limitation by defendants in error; and, as the time when they could be sold at that price has never arrived, a different principle of law prevails, at least to the extent, that, if the former owners of the land desired a restitution, they should restore. We admit we were unable to find a case involving a contract to purchase land approximating in terms and legal effect to the one we have here; the nearest in terms is the one embraced in the Lipscomb-Fuqua decision, decided by our Supreme Court, cited in our original opinion. We may not conceive the contract completely enough, and may apply the legal principles slantingly; however, we believe plaintiffs in error do not give the contract broad enough scope. The $100 per lot condition is a limitation upon the action of plaintiffs in error of course; and, when a man sells a piece of property and reserves the legal title and a lien upon the property, that in effect is also a condition upon a right of sale; at least it has to be paid and is a limitation to the business world. Appellants had something more than this;, they had the right to sell this property in parcels, compel the former owners of the land to take the deferred vendor lien notes as part payment upon the balance of the debt, after retaining $10 per lot for themselves. If lots had risen in value, or could have been sold, it was a valuable stipulation from a business standpoint; and as pointed out in our original opinion, the vendors having agreed to take the deferred notes in payment of the debt, necessarily there should be a limitation of price, and we construe this provision as mutual; and, if in the lottery of business it proved to be a limitation, we are unable to vitalize it is an equity. Plaintiffs in error annex this to the proposition of a conditional contract by arguing, in effect, that defendants in error did all this, fixed the price at which the property was to be sold; “and, it being clearly shown that the time had never yet arrived when these conditions could have been met, certainly the rights of the parties must be governed by a different principle of law.” Any vendor who sells property and retains the title or the vendor’s lien with a balance unpaid practically fixes the price as to successive purchasers; so does the immediate vendee when he trades in that) way. As said, this deferred debt has to be accounted for, and, if the vendee bought too high, he would be in the same condition as these vendees; he could not sell to others.
Under the fourth provision of this contract,. the plaintiffs in error were authorized to sell in bulk or in lots “at such prices and upon such terms as they may desire”; except where they sold in lots, the sale was required to be upon the limitation mentioned. Defendants in- error were required to take notes; and plaintiffs in error arguing (which we are not deciding) that as they did not owe any money until this occurred, and as they did not have to pay the debt in any other manner, it would be inequitable to rescind, admitting, however, that the $2,100 expended by them in an endeavor to sell the property “cannot constitute the equity referred to in the law books.” If so, then the proposition harks back solely to one purely of condition, which we attempted to analyze in our original opinion, and again say we do not think plaintiffs in error sound in the full *614scope of the contract. When they paid $8,-000, they not only had the right to use the land as a fund by sale in parcels to pay the debt, but, if they are correct in saying that they have no obligation to pay anything until they sell the property, they, however, bought the privilege to mature the contract at any time and own the property, which is an option and a valuable right, and which option should be matured in a reasonable time.
The third provision of the contract provides that, upon payment of the balance, the defendants in error shall deed the property, and under the contract this balance is payable without interest. This record discloses that for some period of time after plaintiffs in error purchased this property they were offering the same and fixed the price at from $140 to $350 per lot. Their efforts at this time were of course along the line of a prospective profit. This was during the “boom,” and no efforts were made to sell the property during this period at a price to realize their equity and obtain the money, which they now claim should be restored to them, and necessarily the vendors during this period were cut off from any realization upon the property. This right was Bush’s and Harkrider’s, or their grantee’s. Of course it is speculative at what price defendants in error could have sold the property during this period if they had owned it; that right had been purchased by plaintiffs in error, and the consequences are in the nature of liquidated damages. Durst v. Swift, 11 Tex. 273. At least it would be so in an ordinary contract of sale where the vendors were not in fault, although uncontrollable conditions would make it a hardship upon the vendees, and it seems to us that a patient analysis of this contract, if a reasonable time applies to the maturity of it, the same result should logically follow.
Motion for rehearing is overruled.