Court Opinion

ID: 9549095
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:13:09.934904+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:49.663782
License: Public Domain

O’CONNELL, J.,
dissenting.
The trial court sustained defendants’ demurrer to plaintiffs’ complaint upon the ground that the contract was not sufficiently definite and certain to permit a court of equity to specifically enforce it. The court could not have meant that a court of equity would have difficulty in framing a decree specifying defendants’ performance under the contract because defendants’ promise was definite and certain. Defendants’ performance would consist of the execution of a deed conveying the real property which they had agreed to convey to plaintiffs.
The indefiniteness and vagueness, if any, in the transaction is with respect to plaintiffs’ promise. That promise is alleged in the complaint in order to set out the consideration for defendants’ promise and thus show the existence of a contract. The suit is not brought to require plaintiffs to perform their side of the contract. Therefore, equity is concerned with the definiteness and certainty of plaintiffs’ promise not for the purpose of framing a decree in this suit but only for the purpose of deciding whether there is a contract at all. The case is, therefore, in the same posture as if plaintiffs had brought an action for damages. I understand the majority opinion to concede that this is the posture of the case. The question is: With what specificity must a plaintiff plead the character of his promise which forms the consideration for *452defendant’s promise and which plaintiff alleges has not been performed?
I assume, and I believe that the majority would concede, that if plaintiffs had simply alleged that they had promised to convey certain property in exchange for defendants’ property and further alleged that plaintiffs were able and willing to perform their part of the contract, the complaint would be free from attack by demurrer. In such a case the complaint is quite indefinite and uncertain with respect to plaintiffs’ promise and contains nothing from which it could be determined whether plaintiffs could put on evidence to prove that the promise was certain enough to constitute consideration for defendants’ promise or be enforceable in equity if the suit for specific performance ran the other way. Now, since plaintiffs set out the written contract m haec verba and thus pleaded more than they were required to plead, the majority hold that plantiffs are precluded from going ahead and offering proof to establish that the contract was sufficiently definite to meet the requirements of an action at law or a suit in equity. Why should plaintiffs be foreclosed from proving their case by such pleading if they are not foreclosed by a pleading which alleges their promise and performance in greater generality, i.e., by simply pleading the legal effect of the agreement? The majority opinion answers, “the only reasonable inference to be drawn from the allegations of the complaint is that there is no agreement about the pool except that contained in the writing.” I do not agree that this is the only reasonable inference. Contracts which bind the parties to sell, purchase or exchange property frequently contain promises in general terms. Earnest money agreements ordinarily are drafted in this manner. Unless the Statute of Frauds or the parol *453evidence rule presents an obstacle to proof, the promisee is entitled to establish by competent evidence the specific terms .of the agreement. Thus,1 if action is brought to recover upon a contract for the construction of a house, the plaintiff need not plead the plans and specifications under the contract. As the court stated in Hancock v. Clark, 56 Cal App 277, 278, 204 P 1098 (1922):
“ * * * While it is well settled that plans and specifications are part of the contract to which they relate, as an examination of them is necessary to ascertain the complete agreement between the parties, they are not part of the agreement in such a sense that they must be pleaded in a complaint upon the agreement (9 C.J. 867).”
In the case at bar the complaint alleges that “plaintiffs staked out and commenced construction of a swimming pool, which was shown to the defendants * * *” The contract provides that the swimming pool is “to be completed” which suggests that the evidence might show that construction of the pool had been commenced when the contract was signed. If this were the case, the size and location of the pool would have been known to defendants and could be deemed to have been agreed upon when the contract was signed. We do not know what other evidence plaintiffs could produce to establish specific terms of the contract relating to the construction of the pool. It is possible that the proof would fail in this respect, but plaintiffs are entitled to make a try at it, and technical rules of pleading should not be put in their way if they believe that they have evidence to prove a contract.
Goodwin, J., joins in this dissent.