Jones v. Mississippi Farms Co.

Citations

• 116 Miss. 295
• 76 So. 880

Syllabus

<p>1. Damages. Provisions for liquidated damages.</p> <p>Under a contract for the sale of a railroad providing, that time was of the essence of the contract, that it was to be taken strictly and literally, that on the event of failure to make installment payment strickly and promptly, the contract should be null and void, the rights of the purchaser to cease at once ipso facto, that the property should revert and immediately reinvest in the seller, without any declaration of forfeiture or act of reentry and without any other act, as fully and perfectly as if the contract had never been made, and that the moneys paid should be held absolutely as liquidated damages for the purchaser’s breach. In such case the moneys paid under the contract by the purchaser before his refusal to continue were liquidated damages and not a penalty.</p> <p>2. Constitutional Law. Bight to contract. Fourteenth amendment.</p> <p>It is fundamental that the right to make contracts pertaining to business is one of the rights guaranteed by the law of the land, and especially the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States.</p> <p>3. Contracts. Absence of modification. Enforcement.</p> <p>Unless tbe parties dealing with the subject-matter by their conduct modify or change the contract originally made, or so act in reference to it as to make it inconsistent for a party td claim or rely upon the contract contrary to its agreement and stipulations, it must be enforced as written.</p> <p>4. Damases. Liquidated damages or penalty.</p> <p>In construing a contract to determine whether a clause calls for liquidated damages or a penalty, the intention of the parties ia the thing the court is anxious to ascertain and give effect to.</p> <p>5. Same.</p> <p>The general rule is that the intention of the parties must be drawn from the words of the whole contract, and if viewing the language used, it is, clear and explicit, then the court must give effect to the contract unless it contravenes