Lloyd v. Dumphrey
Lloyd v. Dumphrey
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
In this action brought by appellant against .appellee he alleges that in the month of October, 1874, appellee rented to him his farm in
Appellee demurred to the petition; the demurrer was sustained, and appellant declining to amend his petition was dismissed, and he prosecutes this appeal. The contract, as set forth in the petition, was made in October, 1874, for the rent of the farm for the year 1875. The lease, therefore, was to expire on the last day of the year last named, and consequently was not to be carried into full effect within the space of one year from the making thereof.
Subsec. 7, Sec. 1, Chap. 22, 1 Rev. Stat. 265, provides that no action shall be brought to charge any person upon any agreement which is not to be performed within one year from the making thereof unless the promise, contract agreement, or some memorandum or note thereof be in writing, and signed at the close thereof by the party to be charged therewith, or by his authorized agent. The agreement set out in the petition is not alleged to be in writing, and an action upon it as a parol agreement is interdicted by the statute. In Davenport v. Gentry’s Adm'r, 9 B. Mon. 427, this court said, “It has been settled by repeated adjudications of this and other courts, that under the statute of frauds, an agreement not to be fully performed within one year is a contract not enforceable by either party.”
This enactment extends to all contracts which are not to be carried into full effect and complete execution within the space of one year from the making thereof.- Chitty on Contracts, 67. An agreement for a year’s service, to* commence at a subsequent day, being a contract not to be performed within the year from the time of the agreement, must be in writing. Nor is such an agreement good even
The agreement relied on not being in writing, and by its terms not'to be fully performed within one year from the making thereof, an action upon it could not be maintained and the demurrer was properly sustained.
Judgment affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.