Hale v. Bryant

Citations

• 109 Ill. 34

Syllabus

<p>1. Specific performance—party seeking must perform, and not have abandoned contract. To justify a decree for the specific performance of a contract, it must be fair and free from fraud on others, and it must be shown that the complainant has fully performed on his part. If this is not made to appear, or it appears by the weight of the evidence that the agreement has been abandoned, a specific performance will be denied.</p> <p>2. A defendant, after having assigned his property for the benefit of his creditors, employed one of them, the complainant, to assist him in effecting a settlement with the other creditors, agreeing to pay him one-half of the assigned property that might remain after the debts named were “settled and canceled,” they to be settled out of the property so transferred, or its proceeds. The creditors signed a composition, whereby they were to receive forty cents on the dollar. They were not paid out of such property or its proceeds, but the means were raised otherwise, and the claims, instead of being canceled, were assigned to a third party, who made advances on them to the creditors. After this, the parties treated the contract as abandoned, the complainant receiving the defendant’s indebtedness to him in full, although he had signed the composition: Feld, that a bill for the specific performance of such agreement was properly dismissed.</p> <p>3. Same—contract must be fair. No matter what form a transaction may take, however plausible on its face, a court of equity will discover the real intention of the parties, and will not permit one party to reap an advantage from a contract not just to others with whom he is dealing.</p>