[¶ 1] Albert R. Gagne (Gagne) and Gagne & Son Concrete Blocks, Inc. (Gagne & Son) appeal from the summary judgment entered in the Superior Court (Kennebec County, Marden, J.) in favor of Betsy H. Stevens (Stevens). Gagne contends that the court erred in its rulings that the purchase and sale agreement signed by Stevens violated the statute of frauds because it lacked a sufficient description of the land for sale, 33 M.R.S.A. § 51(4) (1988); that parol evidence was inadmissible to supply a precise description of the land to be conveyed; and that promissory estoppel could not be invoked to order specific performance. We disagree with Gagne’s contentions and affirm the judgment.
Background
[¶ 2] Gagne & Son manufactures concrete blocks and masonry supplies in Belgrade, Maine. Stevens’s home is located on her family homestead, Lot 58 on the Town of Belgrade property map. See Attachment. After purchasing Lot 52 from Stevens in April 1986, Gagne claims that he discussed purchasing more property with Stevens and her husband and walked Lot 58 with them several times. Lot 58 consists of approximately 120 acres. Gagne asserts that these discussions and examinations of the property were the basis for his draft of the purchase *413 and sale agreement for some acreage in Lot 58. Stevens asserts, however, that she never discussed selling part of Lot 58 with Gagne until he appeared at her home on the evening of August 9,1986.
[¶ 3] The details of that night’s discussion are disputed. At its conclusion, however, Stevens signed an agreement to sell “Pete Gagne, Gagne & Son Concrete Block, a piece of lot # 58 on property map of the Town of Belgrade, in the approximate size of 30 ± [sic] in the sum of [$¡20,000, located at the boundaries of the Foster Point Rd and Rt. 27 in Belgrade Me, also abutting to lot 59B. To meet my approval on access.” The agreement also states “I Betsy Stevens accept a check of $100.00 as down payment with balance due when deed is completed.” 1 The agreement was signed by Stevens and her husband Robert, but not by Gagne. Stevens cashed the deposit check shortly thereafter.
[¶4] Gagne claims that the agreement signed by Stevens gives him the right to take 30 acres anywhere on “the top of the hill” on Lot 58, next to Lot 59, as long as it is not too close to a neighboring pond or to the property of Colby College. He asserts that the agreement included no metes and bounds description of the parcel because it had never been separately surveyed or conveyed, and that when Stevens signed the agreement she orally gave him “permission to retain a surveyor and enter the property for” the purpose of arriving at a more formal description necessary for the deed that eventually would effect the conveyance. Gagne asserts that the written agreement was supplemented by this promise and by Stevens’s conduct in walking the property with him and showing him the parcel she intended to convey, both before and after signing the agreement.
[¶ 5] Gagne eventually had a surveyor prepare a description of both the lot he wanted to purchase and possible access routes for Stevens’s consideration. He explains his delay in hiring a surveyor by claiming that it did not make sense to prepare a metes and bounds description until Stevens designated the route of access to the parcel. Gagne alleges that Stevens made excuses over the next several years for not dealing with him, culminating in a refusal to meet with Gagne in 1990, ostensibly due to ill health. (The metes and bounds description of the approximately 27.7-acre lot to which Gagne asserts he is entitled, Parcel 1, and alternate access routes, Parcels 2 and 3, were set forth in his complaint and on the map appended thereto. See Attachment.)
[¶ 6] Stevens asserts that she “was under the impression [the agreement] was a commitment for future negotiations, not a final contract,” and that Gagne was going to return for further meetings about “where the land was going to be.” According to Stevens, during a telephone conversation with Gagne in March 1987, she told him she was no longer interested in selling part of Lot 58 and that she would be returning the $100 down payment, which she claims her husband delivered by hand to Gagne the next day. Gagne asserts that Stevens did not tell him that she no longer wanted to sell the land. He also asserts that Stevens did not return his deposit, nor attempted to rescind her promises or the agreement she signed.
[¶ 7] In February 1991 Gagne’s attorney contacted Stevens to request a warranty deed conveying to Gagne Parcel 1 and the alternate access routes. 2 She refused to provide the deed and Gagne filed this action in October 1991. Stevens obtained a summary judgment on all counts, and this appeal followed.
Discussion
Standard of Review
[¶ 8] In reviewing an appeal from a grant of a summary judgment, we view the
*414
evidence in the light most favorable to the party against whom the judgment was entered and review the court’s decision for errors of law.
Gonzales v. Commissioner, Dept. of Public Safety,
Statute of Frauds and Parol Evidence
[¶ 9] Gagne contends that the purchase and sale agreement signed by Stevens was not a full expression of their understanding and that the court should have taken parol evidence into account in assessing whether the agreement was integrated and whether its description of the property to be conveyed satisfies the statute of frauds, 33 M.R.S.A. § 51(4).
3
Gagne is correct in asserting that parol evidence of the parties’ negotiations and mutual understandings is admissible on the preliminary question whether a written purchase and sale agreement concerning property is fully or partially integrated.
Clarke v. DiPietro,
[¶ 10] The purchase and sale agreement signed by Stevens describes the property to be conveyed as “a piece of lot # 58 on property map of the Town of Belgrade, in the approximate size of 30 ± [sic], in the sum of [$]20,000, located at the boundaries of the Foster Point Rd and Rt. 27 in Belgrade Me, also abutting to lot # 59 B.” The plus-or-minus “30” acres to be conveyed refers to a portion of a tract larger than 120 acres. The agreement’s reference to the size of the parcel alone, therefore, does not constitute a description of the property specific enough to satisfy the statute of frauds.
6
See Michelson,
[¶ 11] Moreover, the “boundaries” indicated in the purchase and sale agreement signed by Stevens serve only to confuse matters. According to the map appended to Gagne’s complaint as Exhibit A (see Attachment), which does not identify Lot 59B at all, the comer where Foster Point Road meets Route 27 borders Lots 51 and 55, not Lot 58. Even if the “boundaries” provided by those two roads were otherwise plausible, the description in the purchase and sale agreement does not specify their length and leaves uncertain the third boundary that would be necessary to describe a discrete parcel of land. (Indeed, Parcel 1 as described in Gagne’s complaint and on the accompanying map is defined by six boundaries — five straight lines and one segment of the Foster Point Road.) Thus, the land “described” in the purchase and sale agreement has an indefinite shape and location, and it is impos *416 sible to locate within Lot 58. Finally, the description in the purchase and sale agreement does not match the 27.7 acres “more or less” of Parcel 1 identified on the map appended to Gagne’s complaint, which is not bounded at all by Route 27.
[¶ 12] These multiple deficiencies in the writing’s description of the property to be conveyed cannot be remedied by parol evidence. The court did not err in disregarding such evidence, nor in finding that the purchase and sale agreement’s description of the land was not specific enough to satisfy the statute of frauds. 7
Promissory Estoppel
[¶ 13] Gagne contends that the court erred in refusing to order specific performance of the purchase and sale agreement pursuant to the doctrine of promissory estoppel. Promissory estoppel may be invoked when a “promise which the promisor should reasonably expect to induce action or forbearance on the part of the promisee or a third person and which does induce such action or forbearance is binding if injustice can be avoided only by enforcement of the promise.”
Restatement
§ 90;
see Chapman v. Bomann,
[¶ 14] Moreover, specific performance of a contract that does not satisfy the statute of frauds is warranted only “if it is established that the party seeking enforcement, in reasonable reliance on the contract and on the continuing assent of the party against whom enforcement is sought, has so changed his position that injustice can be avoided only by specific enforcement.”
Restatement
§ 129;
see Busque v. Marcou,
The entry is:
Judgment affirmed.
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Notes
. The underlining designates insertions handwritten on the typed agreement. Gagne claims that the only item left to be clarified was the route across the parcel to enable access to the gravel that might be located there, and that this clarification led Stevens to amend the draft purchase and sale agreement with the handwritten clause reserving her right to approve the route of access.
. Neither Stevens’s affidavit nor Gagne’s complaint specify the proposed contents of the warranty deed. This statement about the proposed content of the deed is a plausible inference given the order of the relevant events.
. Section 51 states in pertinent part:
No action shall be maintained in any of the following cases: ... 4. Contract for sale of land. Upon any contract for the sale of lands, tenements, or hereditaments, or of any interest in or concerning them; ... unless the promise, contract or agreement on which such action is brought, or some memorandum or note thereof, is in writing and signed by the party to be charged therewith, or by some person thereunto lawfully authorized; but the consideration thereof need not be expressed therein, and may be proved otherwise.
. In
Clarke v. DiPietro,
however, we affirmed the use of parol evidence demonstrating that the buyer of property had promised the seller a 30-day period in which to unilaterally repudiate the contract, in exchange for signing it, to find fraud in the inducement justifying rescission of the contract.
. Once it is determined that a writing’s description satisfies the statute of frauds, parol evidence may be employed for limited purposes, such as "identifying the description contained in the writing, with its location upon the ground,"
White v. Rehn,
. The exception for purchase and sale agreements that explicitly give the right to select the tract to be conveyed to one or the other of the parties does not apply to the facts of this case.
See Delaney v. Shellabarger,
. The alleged agreement was not defective because it was not signed by Gagne. To satisfy the statute of frauds, such a writing need be signed only by “the party to be charged therewith,” 33 M.R.S.A. § 51;
Rulon-Miller v. Carhart,
. Gagne also asserts that Stevens should have been “estopped” from asserting the "application of the statute of frauds as a bar to appellants' complaint,” but argues the issue only in terms relevant to the application of promissory estoppel.
See Chapman,