Court Opinion

ID: 9829739
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:34:47.247677+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:05.194920
License: Public Domain

On Appellee’s Motion for Rehearing.
In 1 Williston on Contracts, § 598, the following is said:
“Where the extension of time or other variation of the contract is requested by one party because of his inability to perform the contract according to its terms, or in any case where he would have been thus unable, an agreement by the other party permitting an extension or variation cannot be said to be the cause of the failure to perform the contract according to its original terms. Here, if the party guilty of nonperformance is allowed to recover or is protected from liability on the original obligation because of his readiness and willingness to perform the extended or varied contract, he is relying merely on a voluntary permission or on an oral contract within the statute. There is no equity forbidding the statute to be set up under these circumstances. The situation is not different in its hardship from that which arises when an oral contract within the statute is denied enforcement.”
In bis motion for rehearing, appellee, after quoting the foregoing, uses the following language:
“We cannot overimpress the court with the above quotation, because it is certainly exactly in point with the case involved.”
In the first place, what is stated by the author is not exactly in point, in any event, since the plaintiffs in the present suit did not rely merely upon an offer to perform their contract with the defendant as modified by the oral agreement, coupled with a showing of their readiness and willing*944ness to perforin tlie same, but they alleged and proved that their said obligation was fully performed within the time limit fixed by the defendant in the written contract That fact makes a material difference, as shown by what is said in 1 Williston on Contracts in section 571, which is as follows:
“When an offer for a unilateral contract is made, the offer is conditional on performance of the act requested as consideration, but when that act has been performed the contract and the promise of the obligor are absolute and a memorandum may express the whole contract, though it makes no mention of the consideration. The same principle may be applicable in a bilateral contract after performance on one side; for a transaction which was originally bilateral may become a unilateral contract by the acceptance of full performance by one side. Accordingly, here, too, a memorandum of the promise which stated it in absolute terms would bo an accurate statement of the promise in the second or unilateral contract, though it would not be an accurate statement of the promise in the first or bilateral contract. The memorandum, it is true, is made before the unilateral' contract arises, but it is no valid objection to a memorandum that it was made before the contract. The result therefore is that it is a reasonable construction of the language of the statute to conclude that the executory performance which will be due from each party must be stated in the memorandum, but that so much of the bargain as has been fully executed need not be stated. This result is supported by the weight of authority in the United States, as shown by the decisions cited in the preceding section. It seems, too, that this result is practically the most desirable. Whore performance on one side has been rendered, there is a double reason, aside from the technical. words of the statute, why no statement of the performance should be necessary in the memorandum. In the first place, something has been done; not merely said. The transaction does not rest wholly in parol. In the second place, the injustice of the situation created is serious if a party who hqs fully performed cannot recover.” .
In the second place, a reading of the decisions cited by the author in footnotes to section 598, cited by appellee and quoted above, demonstrates that the author did not intend to be understood' as announcing- something at variance with what he had said in other sections of the work'which we have quoted above and in our original opinion. The first American case cited by the author in :the footnote to section 598 is Swain v. Seamens, 9 Wall. 254, 271, 19 L. Ed. 554. In that suit Swain sold certain real estate to Medbury and Aldrich for a consideration of $52,000, of which amount $10,000 was paid in cash, and a mortgage was executed by the purchasers on the property so' sold, to secure the balance of the purchase price. As a further security for the purchase-money notes Medbury also gave to Swain a mortgage on other property upon which had been erected a flouring mill. Prior to said purchase and sale, the foundation of a sawmill, to be 50 by 150 feet, in dimension, had been commenced on the property sold, and when Medbury gave the mortgage on the flouring mill as additional security to Swain for the purchase money, Swain indorsed a written agreement upon the back of that mortgage that if the purchasers completed the sawmill in a proper manner and upon the foundation already commenced within two years from the date of the sale, he would accept fire insurance policies on the sawmill as security in place of the mortgage on the flouring mill given by Medbury, and would thereupon cancel and discharge the mortgage on the flouring mill. Thereafter Medbury sold the flouring mill to Seamens and other appellees who instituted the suit against Swain to compel the cancellation of the mortgage which Medbury had executed on the flouring mill. They based their action upon Swain’s written contract to cancel. They alleged a substantial compliance with all the conditions of the agreement for cancellation and within the time limit specified in the agreement. They did not claim that the sawmill, which had been built and completed, was of the precise dimensions mentioned in the agreement, but they alleged it was of larger dimensions than those specified in the agreement, and better adapted for the purpose for which it was intended, and that the mill as built and completed was orally recognized and accepted by Swain as a compliance with that agreement. One of the defenses urged by Swain was that his oral agreement to accept the mill after its completion as a full compliance with his written. agreement for cancellation' was void because in contravention of the statute of frauds of the state where the contract was to be performed.
In discussing that contention the Supreme Court, in effect, held that as long as the oral agreement was unperformed it came within the operation of the statute of frauds, and could not be relied on by plaintiffs; thus adopting the rule of liberal construction of the statute referred to in our opinion on original hearing, to the effect that not only the contract of the defendant which is sought to be enforced must be in writing but also that of the plaintiff given in consideration therefor. But after so holding, and referring to the oral modification of the written contract relied on by the plaintiffs, the court said:
“Regarded, therefore, as a mere executory, agreement to accept the mill when built and completed, it .is clear that the statute of frauds would be a good defense to a suit for a breach of it; but it cannot be viewed in that light, as it was fully executed on the part of the mortgagors, and was in fact fully executed on the part of the appellant.
“3. He is not sued for a breach of the agree*945ment to accept the mill as built and completed; hut the suit is to compel him to cancel and discharge the mortgage as agreed in the written stipulation. Called upon to plead to the bill of complaint, he sets up the defense that the dimensions of the mill vary from those specified in the stipulation, to which the complainants reply that he acquiesced in the change at the time the work was done, and that he accepted the mill as built and completed, and they prove the allegations to the entire satisfaction of the court. They built and completed the mill 78 feet in width by 100 feet in length, at an expense exceeding $80,000, and the appellant not only accepted it when completed as a compliance with the stipulation, but he also accepted the policies of insurance procured on it as security in the place of the second mortgage, and he cannot now be permitted to avoid the true issue, nor to devest the transaction of its real character in order that he may set up the statute of frauds.
VII. 1. Even part performance is often admitted in equity as an answer to the statute; but it is not necessary to invoke that principle in this case, as it is clear that the appellant acquiesced in the changes made in the plan, and that the mill, as built and completed, was accepted by him as a compliance with the stipulation. 1 Story, Eq. Jur. (9th Ed.) §§ 759, 761; Browne, Frauds (2d Ed.) § 463.”
See, also, Morris v. Gaines, 82 Tex. 255, 17 S. W. 538.
Appellee has filed a lengthy and able brief in which many authorities are cited and discussed. It would unduly lengthen this opinion to discuss -all of those authorities. We have carefully considered them, however, but do not find in them any sufficient reason for changing the conclusions we have reached upon original hearing.
We deem it not amiss to add that the defendant Kistler did not testify upon trial and offered no defense to plaintiffs’ suit for damages for his breach of contract, except those discussed in our opinion on original hearing,
Appellee’s motion for rehearing is overruled.