Heth v. Smith

This case comes before us on an appeal taken from an order of the circuit court of Kent county, in chancery, overruling defendants’ demurrer to a bill of complaint asking specific performance of a contract to give complainant a life lease of certain premises in the city of Grand Rapids and to restrain summary proceedings instituted to evict him from said premises.

The condensed portions of the somewhat lengthy bill of complaint material to an understanding of the issue are as follows: In 1866 defendant Charles W. Smith, a resident of Cooperstown, N. Y., then owning “a large farm” lying…