Havana Press Drill Co. v. Ashurst

Citations

• 148 Ill. 115
• 35 N.E. 873

Syllabus

<p>1. Specific performance—of oral contract—clear and satisfactory evidence required. Where a court of equity is called on to decree the specific performance of an oral contract which is disputed, the contract must be shown by clear and convincing evidence. If the evidence is doubtful and conflicting a specific performance will not be decreed.</p> <p>2. Where the contract sought to be enforced is unequivocally denied, and no one attempts to state the time, place or occasion when the agreement was made or entered into, or to give, either literally or in substance, the language employed by the parties in forming it, or the terms agreed on, the specific performance of the contract will be refused.</p> <p>3. The proper proof of an oral contract is the testimony of witnesses who were present when the contract was entered into, and who are able to give, either literally or in substance, the language used by the parties in forming it; and statements of witnesses as to their understandings or conclusions in relation to the contract, or as to what its terms were, if competent as evidence for any purpose, will come far short of proving it with the certainty required by the rules governing the specific enforcement of contracts by courts of equity.</p> <p>4. Where a party claiming the right, under a parol contract, to have a patent assigned to him by the defendant, accepts from the latter, though reluctantly, a written agreement which amounts only to a license to use the patent, and takes no steps to assert the right to an assignment of the patent for six years, such delay is, of itself, evidence of considerable strength that a license was all that the defendant agreed to give, even if it does not constitute an effectual bar, by limitation, to the complainant’s right to relief.</p> <p>5. Consideration—of a license to manufacture under a patent. After the formation of a corporation for the making and selling of wheat drills, one of the corporators threatened that he would go no