82 Iowa 224 | Iowa | 1891
I. Let us first look to the situation of the parties under the written contracts, and then
The appellee attaches importance, in this connection, to the fact that two hundred dollars was paid by bim to Rickard when the time was extended, February 3, 1886, and treats it as a payment of a part of the purchase price of the land. Looking to the language of the agreement under which the two hundred dollars was paid, we find that it is not a payment on a purchase by the defendant, but, “in case said Young shall buy said land or find a purchaser,” it shall be applied as part payment. Of course, if he found a purchaser, he would be entitled to a return of the money in closing the transaction. The two hundred dollars were paid by the defendant to secure moré time in which to purchase or find a purchaser, with the right, if he succeeded, to have it applied for his benefit. Upon the face of the contracts in writing the question is not a doubtful one. Looking, then, to other evidence to aid in a correct interpretation of them, and we find very little, if anything, to aid appellee’s theory of the transaction. Importance is attached to some detached statements, in the correspondence'had before the written contract was made, as that the defendant offered to sell the plaintiff the land, but the correspondence shows the offer or statement to have been such as is made by agents generally selling land for the owner, and means nothing more than that they are intrusted with or have the sale of the land. Barring some such expressions, and the substance of the correspondence preceding the contract is in support of our view of the written contract.
It is strenuously urged that the defendant was not the agent or partner of the plaintiff in the purchase of
The plaintiff should have judgment for the amount of his claim, and the. cause will be remanded to the superior court for that purpose. Reveksed.