Court Opinion

ID: 9527834
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:34:43.255168+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:14.549287
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HARRISON, specially concurring: I concur in the result reached by Justice Jones, but write separately because I do not agree with his explanation as to why the doctrine of part performance has no application on the facts present here. Justice Jones implies that the doctrine may be invoked to remove any oral contract from the Statute of Frauds where the party who has partly performed cannot be compensated at law and the requisites for equitable relief are present. I do not read the doctrine so broadly. As defendant has suggested, part performance is properly understood under the common law in Illinois to apply only where a party seeks specific enforcement of an oral contract to convey land or an interest in land. Anastaplo v. Radford (1958), 14 Ill. 2d 526, 153 N.E.2d 37, the leading case on the doctrine, concerns such a conveyance. So too did the decision by this court in Culbertson v. Carruthers (1978), 66 Ill. App. 3d 47, 383 N.E.2d 618. (See also Ellison v. Ellison (1939), 372 Ill. 323, 23 N.E.2d 718; Winans v. Bloomer (1926), 321 Ill. 76, 151 N.E. 599; see generally 37 C.J.S. Statute of Frauds sec. 249, at 758 (1943).) The dispute before us now, however, pertains, not to an agreement to convey land, but to a contract to lend money which is not to be performed within one year. Contracts not to be performed within a year are not ordinarily taken out of the Statute of Frauds by part performance. (20 Ill. L. & Prac. Statute of Frauds sec. 93, at 62 (1956).) Part performance is therefore of no aid to plaintiffs here. I am aware that Grundy County National Bank v. Westfall (1973), 13 Ill. App. 3d 839, 301 N.E .2d 28, and Yorkville National Bank v. Schaefer (1979), 71 Ill. App. 3d 137, 388 N.E.2d 1312, each cited the part performance rule of Anastaplo v. Radford (1958), 14 Ill. 2d 526, 153 N.E.2d 37, in contexts other than oral contracts to convey realty. In my view this was error. Where specific enforcement of an oral contract to convey land is not at issue, the doctrine which may pertain is equitable estoppel, not part performance. These doctrines are based on certain common principles and are frequently confused, as illustrated here by the trial court’s reliance on Sinclair v. Sullivan Chevrolet Co. (1964), 45 Ill. App. 2d 10, 195 N.E .2d 250, aff'd (1964), 31 Ill. 2d 507, 202 N.E.2d 516, an equitable estoppel case. The doctrines are not, however, the same (see 73 Am. Jur. 2d Statute of Frauds sec. 566 (1974)), although admittedly the distinction between them has not been clearly delineated by Illinois courts. In any event, as Justice Jones points out, plaintiff in this case has chosen not to suggest the applicability of equitable estoppel, and we need not consider whether it would be a viable basis for enforcement of the oral contract in dispute here.