Slicer v. Adams
Slicer v. Adams
Opinion of the Court
This action was brought by the defendant in error to obtain a decree for the reformation of a written agreement relating to land and for the specific performance of such agreement as reformed. The agreement was made on the 1st day of December,- 1891, by the defendant in error as the party of the first part and J. H. Slicer, one of the plaintiffs in error, as the party of the second part. By its terms Adams sold to Slicer a certain real-estate mortgage, covering a twenty-acre tract of land in Anderson county, and a mortgage bond for $2500, mentioned in and secured by the said mortgage, and both assigned to Adams by the Guaranty Loan and Trust Company. The assignment and the agreement in question were made while an action commenced by the trust company to foreclose the mortgage was pending. Adams also agreed to pay for Slicer two notes aggregating $131.11. One paragraph of the agreement reads:
“Now, for and in consideration of the agreement of said Adams to transfer and assign said note and mortgage, said Slicer has this day sold, assigned and delivered to- said Adams ten shares of the capital stock of the Anderson County National Bank, of Garnett, Kan., and will also execute to him a note for $500, of the date hereof, and to run five years, with interest at the rate of eight per cent, per annum, payable semiannually, and, for the purpose of securing the payment thereof, said Slicer has this day executed to said Adams a mortgage upon the above-described real estate, which said Adams shall hold until said Slicer obtains title to said property, as hereinafter specified, when he may place the same of record.”
It was further agreed that Slicer should enter into immediate^ possession of the land, should prosecute
The court also ordered that after the payment of the taxes due upon the land sold, the costs of the action, and the judgment for $180, the surplus should be applied to the payment of the $500 “principal to become due, with interest thereon from June 1, 1896, at eight per cent.”
The written agreement in referring to the $500 mortgage reads that Slicer “has executed” the mortgage ; the reformation asked for and granted made the agreement to read “will execute,” etc. The reformation was clearly warranted by the context, by the agreement as a whole, and by the evidence. There is no pretense that Slicer ever executed the mortgage. The action of the trial court in decreeing specific performance of the agreement was entirely correct and the form of the decree was proper. The case seems peculiarly appropriate for the exercise of the jurisdiction of a court of equity. “The rule has come to be established that if a contract affecting real property is
All the foregoing elements are found here. The decree required the defendant, J. H. Slicer, to do ex-exactly what he had agreed to do, and nothing more. The language used shows that the court did not regard the $500 debt as then due ; and it is clear that the foreclosure of the .mortgage, which in this case is to be regarded as having been executed, was not for the satisfaction of the principal debt but was for the payment of the accrued interest. Slicer obtained possession, and, by a circuitous route, reached the ownership of the land by virtue of the agreement which he now repudiates. The claim of the homestead right in the land as against the plaintiff's equitable interest therein is entirely inequitable and cannot be sustained. The judgment of the district court will be affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.