Williams v. Neely

Citations

• 134 F. 1
• 69 L.R.A. 232
• 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 4496

Syllabus

<p>1. Equity — Jurisdiction to Enjoin Action at Law.</p> <p>Any fact which renders it against conscience to enter or execute a judgment at law, and-which was not available to the defendant at law, confers jurisdiction upon a court of equity to enjoin the proposed entry or execution.</p> <p>2. Same — Promissory Note — Equitable Defense though Neither Offset nor Counterclaim.</p> <p>A sound reason, inhering in the same transaction from which a promissory note springs, why the holder ought not, in equity and good conscience, to recover its face value, is a good equitable defense to it, although this defense constitutes neither an offset, a counterclaim, nor an affirmative cause of action against the holder of the note.</p> <p>3. Promissory Note — Purchase Price — Defect of Title.</p> <p>A partial failure of consideration which results from a defect of title is a good defense pro tanto to an action by the vendor upon a promissory note given for the purchase price of land which the vendor has conveyed with covenants of warranty and against incumbrances.</p> <p>4. Jurisdiction in Equity — Action at Law — Injunction.</p> <p>An injunction should issue to stay an action at law upon a promissory note for the purchase price of land until this equitable defense of reduction is allowed whenever the remedy at law is less certain, prompt, and efficient to attain the ends of justice, either because the interests of the parties require that the title to the land should be perfected, that their rights should be adjudicated, and that the litigation should be closed — a result which no remedy at law is adequate to accomplish — or because it entails circuity of action, or because there is imminent danger of unjustifiable loss or injury to the payee of the note, which a court of equity may, and a court of law cannot, prevent</p> <p>5. Same — What Adequate Remedy at Law is.</p> <p>The adequate remedy at law which will deprive a court of equity of jurisdiction must be a remedy as certain,