Carey v. Coombs
Carey v. Coombs
Opinion of the Court
Plaintiffs appeal from a judgment that certain real property owned by them was subject to a written contract of sale of all fir timber and an oral extension thereof in favor of the defendant Coombs.
The record shows that plaintiffs contracted with the defendant Red Mountain Timber Company to sell to it all of the fir timber located on lands owned by them; that the contract further provided that title to the timber would pass upon payment of the purchase price in the sum of $4.500; and that purchasers would have three years, or until February 8, 1954, to harvest the timber, at which time all timber remaining on the property would revert to the sellers.
Plaintiffs’ attack upon the judgment appears to be that even if testimony relative to the oral extension of the written contract was admissible, it was insufficient to estop them from setting up the bar of the statute of frauds.
Viewing the evidence as we must in the light most favorable to defendants, it appears that Carey knew that Coombs’ proposed purchase of Durable Plywood’s interest under the written contract depended upon his (Carey’s) agreeing to an extension of time sufficient to enable Coombs to harvest the timber; that Coombs, in reliance upon Carey’s oral promise to grant such extension, paid the Durable Plywood Company $6,500; and that within two or three days after consummation of that transaction Coombs restated to Carey the basis of the agreement which they had made. Such evidence was sufficient to estop plaintiffs from setting up the bar of the statute of frauds. (Seymour v. Oelrichs, 156 Cal. 782 [106 P. 88, 134 Am.St.Rep. 154].)
The judgment is affirmed.
Van Dyke, P. J., and Sehottky, J., concurred.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.