Manufacturers Light & Heat Co. v. Lamp

Citations

• 269 Pa. 517
• 112 A. 679
• 1921 Pa. LEXIS 598

Syllabus

<p>Contract — Bales—Uniform Bales Act of May 19, 1915, P. L. 51$ —Evidence—Remedy—Essentials of writing — Part performance— Payment — Specific performance — Equity.</p> <p>1. Statutes, such as the Uniform Sales Act of May 19, 1915, P. L. 543, do not provide mere rules of evidence, but are limitations upon the judicial authority to afford remedies.</p> <p>2. The act requires that all the essentials of an agreement for the sale of personalty over $500 in value, must appear in the written note or memorandum to be signed by the party to be charged.</p> <p>3. If not complete in itself, and oral evidence be required to supply omissions, then the whole is reduced to parol, and, though equity may reform, it can no longer specifically enforce.</p> <p>4. The memorandum of the agreement is insufficient, if the term during which it is to be effective is not given, and it indicates on its face the drawing of an agreement, setting forth the necessary terms and conditions, to be in contemplation of the parties. Specific performance of a contract of such character cannot be awarded.</p> <p>5. If the agreement is to sell gas from a well, the purchaser cannot claim partial performance of the consideration, because he built a pipe-line to receive the gas, where the cost of such line was not to be credited as part of the price for the gas when furnished, and was to be used for transporting gas from other wells in the same field. This was not such a payment as to take the contract out of the statute.</p>