Willson v. Blount

Briscoe, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The bill in this case was filed by the appellees on the 29th of January, 1900, in the Circuit Court for Kent County, for the specific performance of an agreement for the sale of land by the appellees to the appellant, Henrietta M. Willson. The terms and conditions of the agreement are these : “This agreement witnesseth, that the said parties of the first part do hereby covenant and agree with the parties of the second part, that they will sell and convey to the said Henrietta M. Will-son, by a good and sufficient deed all their right, title and interest of, in and to, said real estate for the sum of eight hundred dollars, provided, the said Henrietta M. Willson and Dr. Thomas B. Willson, shall agree to accept said real estate at that amount and to allow the same to be credited on her share or portion in the estate of the said Ann E. Willson, deceased, and on her failure or refusal to accept the same within ten days from this date under the foregoing conditions the said real estate is to be sold at public sale by such person or persons as the said Nora B. Blount, Henrietta M. Willson, Alice J. Will-son, Anna M. Willson and Emma C. Sutton, or a majority of them, may designate.” The defenses set up in the answer and relied upon by the appellents, are, first, that they never accepted the real estate within the time specified in the agreement; second, that not being able to obtain possession of the property, the contract was rescinded by them on.or before the first of January, 1900; third, that they were willing to accept the property, but two of the appellees, Sutton and wife, refused to surrender possession and to deliver a deed of the property, according to the terms of the agreement. The Court below decreed a specific performance of the agreement and from the decree, this appeal has been taken.

There can be no difficulty about the well-established principles of law governing a case of this character. It is manifest ³² from an examination of the contract that its terms are fair and reasonable, and it is founded on an adequate consideration. It is mutual and equal in all its parts and there is no circumstance of suspicion, as to its bona fides. There can be no question, we think, that the appellant accepted the property, here in controversy, under the terms of the contract, We find from the evidence that she not only on the 16th of November, 1899, advertised the property “for sale or rent,” over her own name, in “the Chestertown Transcript” andthe “KentNews,” two weeklynewspaperspublished in Kent County, but according to her own testimony, she admitted that long after the date of the contract she ordered repairs to be put on the property, and also agreed to rent it for the year 1900.

She also admitted that she offered to sell it. In answer to the question, “If Mr. Kilbourn had paid $1,100 for the property there would never have been this trouble, would there,” she replied, “If Mr. Kilbourn had given me $1,100 I would have sued for a deed. If I had received $1,100 I might have felt justified in going to Court for a deed.” According then to the appellant’s own testimony she agreed to accept the property, as provided by the terms of the agreement, and it was not until sometime in December, 1899, that she began to do acts looking to a repudiation of the contract. She admits in her testimony that no notice was given the plaintiffs of her refusal to comply with the terms of the agreement, until January 10th, 1900, when she refused to receive the keys and declined to take possession of the property.

The appellees