Coelho v. Sanfilippo

VAN DYKE, P. J. This is an appeal from a judgment decreeing that plaintiff take nothing in an action brought to recover damages for breach of an agreement for purchase and sale of real property.

Prior to November 28, 1955, S. C. Sanfilippo, now deceased, his wife Antonette, Lamon J. Wright and his wife Ruby were owners in common of a ranch property known as “The Sanfilippo Ranch.’’ Record title stood in the name of the Wrights. On November 28, 1955, S. C. Sanfilippo listed the property for sale with one Frank Perrotta, a San Jose, California, realtor. On the next day plaintiff and his brother Thomas, now deceased, together with Mr. and Mrs. Sanfilippo, executed a deposit receipt. The Wrights did not join either in the listing or in the deposit receipt. Nevertheless, in March of 1956, the Sanfilippos and the Wrights executed a deed of the property to the Coelhos, together with sellers’ instructions and deposited both documents in escrow with the Stanislaus County Title Company. Thereafter, the buyers’ instructions of the Coelhos were placed in the same escrow file and the sale was consummated.

Plaintiff contends that there was a breach of contract in that the sale was one of real property by the acre and, more specifically, was the sale of vineyard by the acre at the agreed price of $650 per acre; that there was a shortage of both land and of land in vineyard. He seeks damages. The deposited deed and the buyers ’ and sellers ’ escrow instructions described the property by the metes and bounds description found in the record title. Therein no mention was made of area planted to vineyard or of total acreage. The description is lengthy. After running for some 4,000 feet along section lines, the description leaves the section line and proceeds by metes and bounds to a junction with a stream described as Dry Creek [187]and then meanders down Dry Creek to another watercourse described simply as a “ravine”; thence meandering down the ravine to the point of beginning. Altogether, after leaving the section line, the description proceeds through forty-one courses of varying distances aggregating 12,946 feet. A surveyor, after a survey, computed the acres actually planted to vineyard as 177 acres, and found 46 additional acres not so planted. The part not so planted consisted generally of ranch roads, land occupied by buildings and other improvements, and of land lying outside the fences which enclosed the vineyard, but within the description. Some of this perimeter land was uncultivated and some used for pasturage. There was testimony that the ranch was commonly known as the Sanfilippo Ranch, and that the tax receipts ascribed a total of 236]/2 acres to the holding. When Sanfilippo listed the property for sale, and when he and his wife joined with the Coelhos in the signing of the deposit receipt they did not act as agent of the Wrights. Mr. Wright had not been consulted by Sanfilippo and knew nothing of the proposed sale through Perrotta. He was himself a broker and testified that when he first learned of the listing of the property and of the execution of the deposit receipts he was “furious” at not being, as he put it, allowed to sell his own property. Wright and the Sanfilippos had for some time been copartners and their affairs appear to have been somewhat involved. The partnership did not own the Sanfilippo ranch, but a part of its business was the operation of that ranch. Early in March of 1956, something over three months from the date of the deposit receipt, the Coelhos notified the Sanfilippos that unless the sale was consummated on or before March 13th the buyers would withdraw from the purchase of the property. Thereupon the Wrights and Sanfilippos agreed upon a dissolution of the partnership, and as a part of the dissolution agreement stipulated among themselves that they would go through with the sale of the Sanfilippo Ranch to the Coelhos. Specifically, the agreement said: ‘1 That the parties hereto hereby agree between themselves to accept the offer of Anthony Coelho and Thomas Coelho ... to purchase Parcel III of Exhibit ‘A’ [the Sanfilippo Ranch], and to execute all the necessary documents to abide by the terms set forth in that certain deposit receipt dated November 29, 1955, between Anthony Coelho and Thomas Coelho . . . and signed by S. C. Sanfilippo.....”