Court Opinion

ID: 9517764
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:31:38.445246+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:15:33.900980
License: Public Domain

REILLY, Senior Judge
concurring specially:
Were it not for the inclusion by the sellers in the memorandum supporting their motion to dismiss of an assertion that housing code violations had been remedied by repairs, which in turn opened the way for the buyers to put this factual allegation into issue, I would affirm the judgment of the trial court. It seems to me that the motion itself did not rely on matters outside the pleadings.
The buyers’ complaint, upon which their prayer for specific performance was based, *1062alleged only one breach of contract, viz., the refusal of the sellers to deem the contract valid and accordingly failing to proceed to settlement. The relief requested was an order directing the conveyance of title and legal fees. Any allegation that sellers had also breached the contract by not restoring the house to a state of good repair was conspicuously absent. As the majority opinion correctly points out, the sellers’ answer to the original complaint was that the contract of sale was invalid.
As that answer had been withdrawn by the sellers in their subsequent motion to dismiss, which conceded the validity of the contract, the state of the pleadings when the court below considered such motion disclosed that the issue of validity no longer existed. Thus, the court did not have to go outside the pleadings to arrive at its finding that “defendants have consented to the requested relief in the complaint.” Such finding was plainly correct, for what plaintiffs had originally sought was an order requiring sellers to go to settlement.