King v. Gildersleeve

California Supreme Court Jul 1, 1889 No. No. 11882Published

Before: Works

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Holding. The court held that a contract for personal services cannot be specifically enforced because it lacks mutuality of remedy, as the court cannot compel the performance of such services. Consequently, an attorney seeking to enforce a contract for land in exchange for legal services must pursue a remedy at law for damages rather than specific performance when the services have not been fully performed.

Issues

Whether a contract for personal services is subject to specific performance.
Whether a lack of mutuality of remedy precludes specific performance of a contract for legal services.
Whether an attorney can compel specific performance of a land conveyance contract when the underlying litigation was compromised by the client's administrator.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The performance of a contract for personal services, confidential in their nature, will not be compelled, and this being so, the party bound by the contract to perform such services cannot compel performance by the other party for that reason alone.”

“The remedy must do mutual as well as the obligation; and where the contract is of such a nature that it cannot be specifically enforced as to one of the parties, equity will not enforce it against the other.”

Synopsis

Attorney and Client—Compensation for Services — Contract to Convey Land — Specific Performance—Mutuality.—A contract by a client to convey land to his attorney, as compensation for services in litigation involving the title, may be specifically .enforced against the client and his vendees with notice, if it has been fully performed on the part of the attorney, without regard to whether the client had title to the land or not; but if not fully or substantially performed by the attorney, and if performance has not been waived, such contract cannot be specifically enforced for want of mutuality of remedy, the contract being for personal services confidential in their nature, which the client could not enforce.

Id. — Compromise by Client.—The compromise of litigation by a client cannot affect the rights of the attorney under a contract for the conveyance of land as compensation, though he cannot obtain any better title than the client had, and of that the other party and those claiming under him with notice cannot complain. An attorney cannot prevent a compromise by his client; but neither the client nor the opposite party having knowledge of his rights can so compromise the action as to defeat the rights of the attorney in. the subject-matter of the action.

Id. —SPEcr'ic Performance—Compromise by Administrator—Waiver of Performance — Damages. —The refusal of an administrator to carry on litigation which his decedent was carrying on under contract with his attorney to convey him land as compensation, and the effecting of a compromise by such administrator, under the sanction of the probate court, cannot be regarded as such a waiver of performance as would entitle the attorney to a specific performance of the contract, without having fully, or substantially performed on his part, though it might entitle him to damages.

Works, J. — The deceased, Corwin, and the defendant Baldwin, being in litigation involving the title to a certain tract of land, the former entered into a written contract with the appellant’s intestate, by which he agreed that, in consideration of his services, to be rendered as an attorney for said Corwin, in said litigation, he would convey to Lawrence “a lot of land out of the premises which may be recovered by him, fronting thirty feet on Hayes Street, by a uniform depth southerly of 137 ½ feet, which is to be of equal quality and value, as the re[507]maindor of said premises, free of encumbrances created by him.”

Lawrence entered upon the performance of the services, and a long litigation followed, the case coming once to this court. Before the litigation was concluded Corwin died, and the respondent Gildersleeve was appointed his administrator. Gildersleeve declined to prosecute the action further, although Lawrence requested it, and was ready and willing to carry out his part of the contract. Gildersleeve, against the advice and without the consent of Lawrence, compromised the litigation with Baldwin for one thousand dollars, and under an order of the probate court, procured in furtherance of the terms of compromise, conveyed to Baldwin all the right, title, and interest of Corwin in the property.

This suit was brought to compel a specific performance of the contract of Corwin to convey to Lawrence the thirty feet front of the property, and the complaint shows substantially the above facts.

Baldwin and the defendant Grayson, who took under him, as well as Corwin’s administrator, are made parties defendant.

A demurrer to the complaint was sustained, and judgment rendered against the plaintiff, from which this appeal is taken, and is being prosecuted by King, the administrator of Lawrence.

We are inclined to doubt the correctness of the ruling of the court below, on account of the extreme length of the brief of the learned counsel for respondent in its support. Knowing the ability of counsel and their accurate knowledge of the law, a brief of eighty-five pages coming from them in support of a single ruling of the court below casts great doubt upon such ruling. However, the learned counsel may not have had time to prepare a short brief, and for that reason have cast upon us the unnecessary labor of reading and extracting there[508]

King v. Gildersleeve

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