Briles v. Paulson

SLOSS, J.

Appeal by defendant from a judgment in favor of the plaintiffs. The case presents a situation very similar to that recently considered by this court in

Briles

v.

Paulson, ante,

p. 196, [149 Pac. 169], Thomas Briles had there sued for the annulment of a contract whereby the defendant’s predecessor was given an option to purchase certain lands. One

[409]

of the provisions of the contract was that the holder of the option should, within a given time, do certain work upon a reservoir dam. The contract provided that if the proposed purchaser should fail to carry out any of the stipulations on his part the owner might declare the agreement terminated. The action sought a judgment declaring such termination by reason of the alleged failure of the defendant to do the required work on the dam. The judgment forfeiting the defendant’s rights under the option was affirmed, the court deciding that the evidence supported the findings that the work on the dam had not been done within the prescribed time and holding, further, that such failure warranted the judgment declaring the agreement terminated.

The same points are involved in the present action and they, without regard to other grounds upon which the plaintiff herein sought relief, are sufficient for an affirmance of the judgment.

The contract which forms the basis of this suit was made on December 5, 1910, between John Briles and Irene Briles, his wife, as parties of the first part, and J. J. Payseur, as party of the second part. Paulson, the defendant and appellant, is the assignee and successor of Payseur. By the contract, the parties of the first part granted to the party of the second part “the option of purchasing for the sum of eighty thousand (80,000) dollars ... at any time from the date of this agreement up to and until the thirty-first (31st) day of December, 1915, subject to the conditions herein contained” certain real estate situated in Modoc County. Provisions for the making of surveys and subdivisions and for the sale of subdivisions separately were made in terms similar to those contained in the contract between Thomas Briles and Payseur, involved in the former decision to which we have referred. The contract now before us refers to the dam on the land of Thomas Briles and contains, with respect to that dam, the same stipulations found in the Thomas Briles contract. The subsequent modification of that stipulation mentioned in the former opinion covered the contract here involved as well as the contract between Thomas Briles and Payseur. The present contract also provides for the right of the parties of the first part to terminate the agreement and take possession of the property on the failure of the party of the second part to “carry out