Brown v. Drew

Decided December 5, 1893

Supreme Court of New Hampshire · decided 1893-12-05

Bill in Equity, for specific performance. Facts agreed. The plaintiff made a yerbal agreement with the intestate to loan him $150, for which the latter was to give him a note secured by a mortgage of certain land. In pursuance of the agreement he delivered the money to the intestate. The note and mortgage were prepared, but their execution was prevented by the sickness of the intestate, who died in a few days, leaving an estate not sufficient for the payment of his debts.

Relies on Purcell v. Miner · Kidder v. Barr · Ham v. Goodrich

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1893-12-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently April 1977

9 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.

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Per Curiam. *

¶1 “ No action shall be maintained upon a contract for the sale of land, unless the agreement upon which it is brought, or some memorandum thereof, is in writing, and signed by the party to be charged, or by some person by him thereto authorized by writing.” P. S., e. 215, 8. 1. Part performance of a contract for the sale of land, as when the purchaser takes possession of the land or makes substantial improvements upon it before the delivery of the deed, is held in equity sufficient to relieve him from the operation of the statute; but merely the payment of the agreed price does not have that effect. Ham v. Goodrich, 33 N. H. 32, 36-39; Kidder v. Barr, 35 N. H. 235, 255; Purcell v. Mines, 4 Wall. 513, 518; 3 Pom. Eq. Jur., s. 1409, note.

¶2 Bill dismissed.

Carpenter, J., did not sit: the others concurred.

¶3 See foot-note on page 80.