Merritz v. Circelli

Opinion by

Mr. Justice Horace Stern,

At least as early as the seventeenth century the High Court of Chancery in England decreed specific performance of an agreement with an allowance of compensation to the plaintiff because of the defendant’s inability fully to carry out his contract: (Cleaton v. Gower, Rep. temp. Finch, 164, (Ch. 1674)). The practice thus born has bécome so generally adopted that it is now a commonplace doctrine in equity jurisprudence, it being firmly established that, where it is not in the power of a vendor to make title to all that he has covenanted to convey, the,vendee…