Lovejoy v. Roberts

Citations

• 35 Tex. 605

Syllabus

<p>1. If, in a sale of land on deferred payments, the vendor misrepresented to the vendee the quantity, quality, or value of the land, the vendeemay retain the land and have a rebate from the price he was induced to promise; and in a suit by the vendee for a specific performance, a court of equity can allow such rebate from the purchase money, and still decree the title to the vendee.</p> <p>2. R. held a title bond for a tract of land, and sold the land by verbal contract to L., in part for cash and in part on a deferred payment. Afterwards, R. sued L. before a justice of the peace, for the deferred payment, and L. pleaded the statute of frauds, and also reconvened against R., alleging that the latter fraudulently misrepresented the locality and quality of the land, and had thus induced him, L., to purchase different and less valuable land than that represented to* him by R.; and that the cash payment was a full equivalent for the-, land imposed upon him by R. To obviate the defense of the statute* of frauds, R., at the trial, tendered to L. the title bond and an assignment of it in writing, as an absolute conveyance of the land; and L.. accepted the bond and assignment. The judgment of the justice was in favor of L., and was never appealed from by R. Held, that R. was estopped by his tender and delivery of the title bond from subsequently claiming the land as against L., on account of the latter’s non-payment of the deferred purchase money. Held further, (on re-hearing), that the judgment of the justice was, in effect, that the cash payment made by L. was all that R. was entitled to receive, and that the ^misrepresentations of R. exonerated L. of the deferred payment then sued for; and as the justice’s judgment remains in force and unreversed, L. is not in default, and in his present suit for specific performance is entitled, as against R., to a decree for the legal title to the land.</p> <p>3. (On re-hearing.) The principles of law respecting the specific performa