Hallesy v. Jackson

Citations

• 66 Ill. 139

Syllabus

<p>1. Specific performance—defeated by gross laches. In 1846, the complainant purchased an eighty-acre tract of land by a verbal contract, and conveyed to the vendor forty acres of land to secure the payment of the price of the other tract, with interest. The complainant finding that he could get the money at a less rate of interest, by consent of all parties, the vendor conveyed both tracts to one J, who advanced the money and became substituted in the place of the original vendor. In 1849, the complainant paid J a portion of the purchase money. In 1868, the heirs of J, he having died, conveyed the lands to G, when the complainant filed his bill to have the deed to G declared a mortgage, and for redemption from the same, or have a trust declared, or to compel the heirs of J to account for the value of the lands: Held, that the relation of the original parties as to the eighty-acre tract was that of vendor and vendee; that J, by substitution, took the place of the vendor, and that the complainant’s remedy as to this tract was by bill for specific performance, but that, by his gross laches and inexcusable delay in completing the contract, he was barred of that remedy.</p> <p>2. Mortgage—right to redeem from comkyance giren as a secw'ity. Where a party, in 1846, conveyed forty acres of land to one from whom he had verbally purchased an eighty-acre tract, as a security for the payment of the purchase money, and, in 1848, by agreement, one G- was substituted as vendor, and both tracts were conveyed to him by the original vendor, who was paid by G, and the heirs of G, after his death, sold and conveyed both tracts: Held, that the relation thus created as to the forty acre tract was that of mortgagor and mortgagee; that the sale and conveyance by the heirs was a distinct abandonment and -repudiation of the contract of sale as to the other tract, and operated to discharge the vendee from the payment of the price, and therefore was a satisfaction of the mortgage, and that t