Lynes v. Hayden

Decided January 21, 1876

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1876-01-21

Sts. e. 117, § 5, for the specific performance of the following agreement, signed by Washington F. Somerby, the defendant’s intestate: “ Cambridge, July 20, 1871.

Relies on Pray v. Clark · Grace v. Denison

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1876-01-21

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently December 1924

4 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Gray, C. J.

¶1The jurisdiction to enforce specific performance of written agreements of persons deceased, conferred upon the Probate Court by the Gen. Sts. c. 117, § 5, is concurrent with the jurisdiction of this court in equity under the Gen. Sts. c. 113, § 2, and must be governed by the same rules.

¶2The agreement signed by the intestate describes the boundaries of the land by the adjoining streets on the northeast and northwest only, and looks to the fixing of the bounds, and the laying out of another street, before the conveyance. The report finds that the bounds were not fixed, nor the location of the proposed street determined, in his lifetime. The agreement is too indefinite to be specifically enforced. Boston & Maine Railroad v. Babcock, 3 Cush. 228. Pray v. Clark, 113 Mass. 283. Grace v. Denison, 114 Mass. 16. Jordan v. Fay, 40 Maine, 130.

¶3Petition dismissed.