Felt City Townsite Co. v. Felt Investment Co.

167 P. 835, 50 Utah 364, 1917 Utah LEXIS 83
CourtUtah Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 20, 1917
DocketNo. 2903
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 167 P. 835 (Felt City Townsite Co. v. Felt Investment Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Utah Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Felt City Townsite Co. v. Felt Investment Co., 167 P. 835, 50 Utah 364, 1917 Utah LEXIS 83 (Utah 1917).

Opinion

THURMAN, J.

This case was beard at a former term of this court during 1916, and three separate opinions were handed down. Application for rehearing was filed, and before the application was disposed of there was a partial change in the personnel of the court rendering it almost imperative that the application for rehearing be granted, and it was granted. Since then the membership of the court has been increased by the appointment of two additional judges, and the case was reargued during the present term of the court as now constituted. The opinions rendered at the former term have not been published. This opinion must therefore be considered as the official opinion of the court, and is the only one that will be published.

The questions involved relate to practice only, and in stating the case only so much of the proceedings will be detailed as is necessary to determine the particular points in controversy.

[367]*367The plaintiff is the successor in interest to the rights and obligations of certain contracts for the purchase of town lots platted, and to be platted, in Felt City townsite, Fremont County, Idaho. The defendant corporation is the vendor, and the plaintiff and its predecessors will be referred to as the vendee. The vendor sold to the vendee an exclusive option to purchase said lots at certain prices according to their classification and on certain terms specified in the contract. The vendor agreed in said contract that it would at its own expense survey, plat, and record the unplatted portion of said land. Payment was to be made and accounts of sales rendered by the vendee from time to time as the lots were sold, and the vendor covenanted that a certain per cent, of the money arising from sales should be deposited by it in a certain bank in Salt Lake City as a trust fund to be used for the purpose of constructing a bridge across the river at or near the Felt City townsite. Vendor also agreed that when lots were sold and fully paid for the vendor, within thirty days, on demand, would make and deliver to vendee a warranty deed and abstract of title and procure a land value guarantee contract executed by the Federal Guarantee Company for said lot or lots. The option was to continue for five years, unless sooner forfeited.

The above and foregoing is the substance of the material parts of the contract as far as the vendor’s covenants are concerned. The covenants and agreements of the vendee are immaterial inasmuch as it is alleged in the complaint, in effect, that plaintiff fully performed the promises and agreements on its part to be performed.

The complaint pleads the contract literally in words and figures, and then alleges in effect, that the defendants, other than the corporation, received payments of money under said contract, including trust fund payments, amounting to $2,968.89, and that said defendants have appropriated to their own use all of said trust funds except the sum of $468.58. It is then alleged that defendants failed to plat into lots, blocks, and streets certain portions of said land; and, further, that a map furnished by defendants for other portions [368]*368of tbe land, was false and inaccurate. Tbe complaint then sets out in full certain sections of tbe Idaho Eev. Codes, (sections 2300-2314) requiring owners and proprietors of land desiring to lay out a townsite to survey, plat, stake, and record the same; and tbe law also provides (section 2314) that any person disposing of or offering for sale or lease any such lot until the plat has been acknowledged and recorded shall forfeit and pay $50 for each of said lots. The complaint further alleges that defendants disposed of and offered for sale all of the lots in said townsite to plaintiff knowing that the same had not been platted, and by certain alleged misconduct on the part of defendants plaintiff was hindered in the sale of 930 of said lots not surveyed, platted, and recorded, and was thereby deprived of the profits thereof in the sum of $23,250; that under the terms of the Idaho statute defendants had forfeited to plaintiff $50 for each of said 930 lots in the aggregate sum of $46,500; that defendants retain and hold said trust fund in the sum of $2,503.21, and for failing to furnish abstract of title and bond for lots fully paid for plaintiff has been damaged in the sum of $5,000, for all of which sums and amounts plaintiff prays judgment against all of the defendants.

The complaint was served and filed on the 30th day of October, 1916, and on the 17th day of November, following, defendants appeared and filed a paper denominated “Motion for an order requiring separate statement of causes of action. ’ ’ The instrument, in effect, moved the court to require plaintiff to separately state the several distinct causes of action in its complaint, referring to the statute relied on by the defendants. Three days afterwards, on the 20th of November, plaintiff filed a demand with the clerk of the court that default be entered against defendants. The clerk complied with the demand and entered default. On December 8th, following, defendants obtained an order of court setting December 11th as the date for hearing a motion to strike the demand for, and certificate of, default from the files, and at the same time filed'their motion. The motion was not heard until the 17th of December at which time the court ordered that the default be stricken. [369]*369Plaintiff then demanded of the court that default be entered. On the 23d of December the court denied plaintiff’s motion for default, and on December 30th granted defendants’ motion requiring plaintiff to separately state the several causes of action contained in the complaint, designating them, in effect, as follows: (1) For the recovery of the trust fund; (2) for the recovery of profits that plaintiffs would have earned but for the fraudulent representations of defendants; (3) recovery of damages for the breach of the contract; and (4) the amount forfeited to plaintiff under the Idaho statute. The court allowed plaintiff time within which to amend its complaint. On the 8th day of January, following, plaintiff served and filed notice to the effect that it would stand upon its complaint and declined to amend. The court thereupon entered judgment dismissing the action. Plaintiff appeals and assigns as error these several rulings and orders of the court.

The foregoing statement is a brief history of the material portions of all the proceedings down to the time the appeal was taken. Its prolixity is partly accounted for by the nature of the case and partly by a belief that a full statement at this time will tend to shorten the opinion.

The former opinions rendered in the case, to which reference has been made, although conflicting one with another on some of the questions involved, are very illuminating and instructive, and will tend to lighten the burden of the writer in his attempt to express the views of the court. Comp. Laws 1907, section 2961, reads as follows:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
167 P. 835, 50 Utah 364, 1917 Utah LEXIS 83, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/felt-city-townsite-co-v-felt-investment-co-utah-1917.