This is an action to recover damages for defendant’s refusal tO| execute a written lease of two stores in the city of Duluth. The case was tried to the court and a jury. At the termination of the evidence a verdict was directed for defendant. This appeal is from an order denying a motion for judgment or for a new trial in the alternative.
The material facts which under our view are determinative of this appeal may be briefly stated. Plaintiff was the owner of two stores in the city of Duluth. Defendant desired a written lease therefor for one year, the time to commence at a future date. Certain improvements were requested by the intended lessee; plaintiff consented to make them, and declined to renew leases with the tenants then in possession, but proceeded to make the changes desired by defendant, although some of the repairs were not wholly completed at the time when the lease was to be executed. Defendant, before the time for the delivery of the lease, declined to accept the same, although such an instrument was duly pre-
It cannot be questioned that, whatever the relationship of the parties may have been, the agreement for the future execution of the lease was void, as it was not in writing, and could not be
We are not able to adopt the view that the result desired by the plaintiff would be the same as if the aid of a court of equity had first been had to obtain such relief, and therefore might be accomplished by a short cut in an action at law to be tried to a jury. The conditions which control a court of equity in decreeing specific performance are peculiar, and appeal distinctively to equitable considerations, and its jurisdiction must be exercised through equitable procedure. It would be as unjust to submit to a jury the right to a specific performance, or to establish an oral agreement directed by a court upon the theory of partial performance, which is necessarily a preliminary incident to an action for the recovery of damages, as to submit to a jury the reformation of a written instrument or any other substantial cause of action belonging exclusively to equitable jurisdiction. On the trial it was not until after the testimony had been heard that it was clearly apparent that the plaintiff depended upon establishing the lease to justify a recovery of damages, when the court directed a verdict against her; and we think this direction was clearly right, not only upon the grounds above indicated, but for the further substantial reason that courts will only give damages in such cases where specific performance is prevented by some act which renders such performance by the party against whom the suit is brought impossible,
The paramount difficulty with plaintiff’s claim in this case is the inexorable force of the statute of frauds, which sometimes may be invoked to further the ends of injustice, but generally rests upon substantial grounds of public policy that requires the courts to recognize and enforce its wisdom in all cases falling within its purview, and this we regard as one of them.
Order affirmed.