Southworth v. Oliver

587 P.2d 994 (1978)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Oliver (D) was a farmer and decided to sell property called Bear Valley. The sale had to be on terms as per discussions with his accountant and attorney for tax reasons. D had a discussion with Southworth (P) over the possibility of selling the property. P was interested in the land, and that D wanted to sell. P claims that D showed him a map, but there was no discussion as to the price or terms of the sale or any details regarding such a purchase. P claims that D agreed to get back to him with a price and that he would then get back with whether he could get the money to buy. P called D almost a month later, and D indicated that he was still interested in selling and was in the process of getting information from the assessor to establish value. D then wrote a letter on June 17 telling P about the market value of the land, and the terms. The letter detailed that the property he was selling had a value of $324,419 with terms available. There was also a second enclosure to sell other property in the same envelope. The letter was drafted by D’s wife, and D also sent it to three other neighboring property owners. P responded immediately by accepting the offer purported to be in the letter by his own letter of June 21. On June 23, a neighbor, Holliday, who had discussed the possibility of a land swap with D, called P to work out the possibility of an exchange on the land that he had just bought. Things were not working out between P and Holliday, and when Holliday informed D of this, D sent a letter to P indicating that there was no contract for sale and that the June 17 letter was merely a starting point for further negotiations. D mailed this letter on June 24. In that letter, D told P that he had misconstrued the prior negotiations and written summaries of the land, that no offer to sell had even been made, and that the letter sent on June 17 was for information purposes only. D also contended in his letter that it was not possible to tell the legal descriptions of the land and as such, there was no enforceable contract. D also stated that he was open to further negotiations. P sued D for specific performance. It was granted. D appealed; D contends that the writing mailed by them to P is not an offer to sell and that even if it was, it was not properly accepted and that they also filed a demurred in the appeals court alleging the contract was void as violative of the statute of frauds.