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49 Cal. 586

Clark v. Clark

California Supreme Court

Decided July 1, 1875

California Supreme Court · decided 1875-07-01

The defendant, Patrick Clark, had occupied one hundred and sixty acres of land in Sonoma County, from October, 1871 to October, 1872, as the tenant of the plaintiff. Patrick Clark desired to lease the land for another year, and had several conversations with the plaintiff on the subject.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1875-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently September 1937

4 state decisions

201875188018901900191019201930decided

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.

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By the Court, Wallace, C. J.:

¶11. The terms of the agreement for a lease were sufficiently certain in themselves to support a decree for specific performance.

¶22. The plaintiff had received $600 for which he had delivered to the defendant a receipt: “Six hundred dollars on account of lease to be drawn by F. W. Shattuck, according to our agreement stated before him.”

¶33. The entry of the defendant, Clark, upon the premises, and their occupancy by him for the first year by his agent, Dake, is equivalent to his personal occupation. There was no promise on his part that he would personally occupy; and the “ordinary covenants,” which the conveyancer was instructed to insert in the instrument of lease, would not embrace a covenant for exclusive personal occupation upon the part of the lessee, or that he would not conduct the farm by agents or employees.

¶44. The tender of the rent due for the second year was well made. There had been no laches upon the part of the defendant, and the act of Dake in making the trade was, under the letter of attorney of November 9, 1872, the act of his principal, the defendant Clark.

¶5*590The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded, with directions to render a decree for the specific performance -of the agreement by the plaintiff.

¶6Neither Mr. Justice Crockett nor Mr. Justice McKinstry expressed an opinion.

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