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56 Ala. 396

Rea v. Richards

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided December 15, 1876

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1876-12-15

<p> Bill in Equity for Specific Performance of Parol Contract for Sale of Land. </p> <p>1. Bankruptcy; right to enforce parol contract for sale of land. — A purchaser of lands, under an executory parol contract, having afterwards obtained a certificate of discharge in bankruptcy, cannot maintain a bill in equity for the specific performance of the contract; his assignee is the only party who can sue.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1876-12-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently October 1926

4 state decisions

20187618801890190019101920decided

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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BRICKELL, C. J.

¶1The bill was filed by the appellant, to enforce the specific performance of a parol contract, made witti the appellee, for the purchase of an undivided one-third interest in certain real estate, situate in the town of LaEayette. The averment of the bill is, that the contract was made in 1863, by appellant, as trustee of the statutory separate estate of his wife, and the purchase-money paid formed part of such estate. It is further averred, that the wife died in 1866, intestate; and on her death, the appellant succeeded to a life-estate in the real estate so purchased. The answer admits the contract of sale, and the payment of *397tbe purcbase-móney; but denies that the contract was made by the appellant as trustee, or that the purchase-money paid was part of the wife’s statutory separate estate. It avers that the contract was made by appellant, for himself, in his own name, and the money paid was his own money. It is further averred, and the fact shown, that in 1868 appellant was, on his own petition, adjudicated a bankrupt; and his bankruptcy is relied on, as a bar to the relief prayed by the bih. _

¶2_ It is not material to inquire, whether the testimony supports the averments of the bill, or the averments of the answer. Whatever interest the appellant had in the contract, or in the real estate, whether he succeeded to such interest as husband under the statute, or acquired it by the contract of purchase, passed from him, to the assignee in bankruptcy, on the adjudication; and the assignee alone could maintain a bill for specific performance.

¶3The decree of the chancellor, dismissing the bill, must be affirmed.

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