Kraft v. Egan

Briscoe, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The bill in this case is filed for a specific performance of a contract for the sale of land and improvements thereon. The original and supplemental hills, demurrers thereto, and order of Court thereon, are, by agreement of counsel, omitted from the record, and the questions to be passed upon by the Court arise upon a demurrer to an amended bill. The contract is set out in the ²⁵¹ bill, and is in these words. “This agreement made this 11th day of March, 1891, between John G. Kraft and Peter Forney Winebrenner, of the City of Baltimore, in the State of Maryland, of the one part, and Charles E. Egan of said city of the other part.

Witnesseth, that the said Kraft and Winebrenner have sold to said Egan all their land and improvements thereon, together with the boiler and elevator on the east side of Belt street, and south of Cross street, running to the Port Warden’s line, owned by said Kraft and Winebrenner and occupied as a packing house by P. E. and D. E. Winebrenner; which is subject to a ground rent of $600 a year. The terms of sale are twenty-seven thousand five hundred dollars for said property, of which the sum of one hundred dollars has been paid this day, — and thirty-nine or forty-nine hundred dollars more, — making, say, four thousand dollars or rive thousand dollars, shall he paid within thirty days from this date, and the balance within five years from first day of May, 1891, with interest semi-annually from that day. Possession to he given on 1st May, 1891. ’faxes to he adjusted to 1st May, 1891, in due proportion, also the ground rent to he paid up to 1st of April, 1891. Thirty days to he allowed from this day for the examination of title and the drawing of a deed to said Egan, and a mortgage from him to said Kraft and Winebreimer for the balance of the purchase money; said mortgage to contain the covenants, clauses and conditions usual in the City of Baltimore. ” The hill sets out that the complainants had performed all the conditions of the contract, and were willing and ready to deliver possession of the property, and had tendered possession thereof on the first day of May, 1891; that they were willing to accept either the sum of $ 3,900 or the sum of $4,900, within the period limited by the contract; to execute á proper deed, and to take a mort ²⁵² gage to secure balance of purchase money, in accordance with the terms of the agreement.

The defendant demurred to the hill and assigned as cause of demurrer: First, — That the contract is too uncertain to be enforced. Second, — That the contract is incomplete. Third, — That the interest and estate of the plaintiffs in the property is not such as was sold to the defendant. Fourth, — That the title to the property was clouded and embarrassed by a reasonable doubt.

Fifth, — That the subject-matter of the contract is not sufficiently described. The principal question in the case arises upon the sufficiency of the description of the property sold as set out in the contract; and whether the appellants could make a good and valid title to the property sold, on the first day of May, 1891. It is contended on the part of the appellee, that the description that the property is situated “on the east side of Belt street and south of Cross street, running to the Port Warden’s line, owned by said Kraft and Winebrenner, and occupied as a packing house by P. F. and D. E. Winebrenner,” is uncertain and indefinite, because it does not state the city or State in which the property lies; and that parol testimony would have to be resorted to in order to establish the house and land on the east side of Belt street and south of Cross street and occupied by P. F. and D. E. Winebrenner. But this objection we do not think can he sustained.

The parties between whom the contract is made are mentioned in the agreement as of the City of Baltimore, in the State of Maryland. The contract refers to Belt street and Cross street and to the Port Warden’s line, and states that the property is occupied as a packing house by persons who are named, and that it is owned by the ²⁵³ vendors, who