Kenneth Witte appeals from a judgment of the district court, reversing in part the bankruptcy court. The district court held that Witte remains liable on a judgment arising out of an installment land sales *805 contract, notwithstanding the fact that the vendor opted to forfeit the contract and repossessed the property. This case raises an issue of first impression under Illinois law. We reverse.
I.
On June 25, 1981, Kenneth Witte executed an installment sales contract with Louie Bral and Elizabeth Devlieger under the terms of which Witte agreed to purchase a 160-acre farm in Cambridge Township, Henry County, Illinois for $488,800. More precisely, the terms of the parties’ contract called for Witte to make a $24,440 cash down payment, a $24,440 payment on March 1, 1982 and subsequent yearly installments of between $10,000 and $97,760. The agreement expressly provided that half of the payments should be paid to Bral and half to Devlieger. In addition, Paragraph 11 of the contract, the only part of the contract relevant to these proceedings, provided that:
In case of failure of the Vendee [Witte] to make either of the payments, or any part thereof, or to perform any of the covenants on his part hereby made and entered into, this agreement shall, at the option оf the Vendor [Bral or Dev-lieger], be forfeited and determined and the Vendee shall forfeit all payments made by him on this agreement and such payments shall be retained by the Vendor in full satisfaction of and in liquidation of all damages by him sustained, and the Vendor shall have the right to reenter and take possession of thе premises aforesaid.
Witte failed to make his yearly installment payment in March 1984. Consequently, Bral and Devlieger obtained a judgment against Witte in Henry County Circuit Court in the amount of the 1984 payment, $57,291.33, plus the cost of obtaining the judgment. On August 16, 1984, the Henry County Court further ordered Witte to pay Bral and Devlieger the proceeds from the sale of the crops grown that year on three farms that he owned, Witte’s share of the proceeds from the sale of 44 head of cattle, rental payments received by Witte flowing from certain farm real estate, and the proceeds from the sale of two used farm tractors. Witte complied with the court order and paid some money over to Bral and Devlieger in partial satisfaction of the May 1984 judgment. Trouble on the farm continued, however, and Witte also failed to make his March 1985 installment payment. Soon after this second default, Devlieger made arrangements with Witte’s tenant farmer to retake the farm and to plant the 1985 crop, half the cash proceeds from which Bral admits to receiving. 1 In April, Witte filed for protection under the federal bankruptcy laws. One month later, Bral filed his proof of claim with the bankruptcy court which included: $21,582.44 owed on the 1984 judgment, 2 $45,904.91 due as the March 1985 installment payment, and рroperty taxes of $1,497.18 which Witte should have paid in 1984.
On these facts, the bankruptcy court found that Bral and Devlieger had repossessed the farm in the spring of 1985 when Devlieger made arrangements to plant and harvest the 1985 crop for their benefit. 3 In the opinion of the bankruptcy court, Bral and Devlieger’s conduct constituted a forfeiture under Paragraph 11 of the sales contract and hence an election to retake the *806 property rather than to pursue any claim for damages under the contract. Thus, despite the fact that Bral and Devlieger reduced their 1984 damages claim to judgment prior to rеpossessing the farm, the bankruptcy court disallowed Bral’s entire claim on the grounds that the subsequent election to repossess the property prohibited Bral from also seeking to collect the judgment. “If Bral was permitted to both retake the property and get some benefit of the contract price,” the bankruptcy court reasoned, “he would be unjustly enriched.”
Bral appealed the bankruptcy court’s dis-allowance of his claim to the district court, claiming that Witte’s 1984 and 1985 defaults should be characterized as two separate breaches giving rise in turn to two separate causes of action. Bral further contended that because each cause of action could independently support a claim for contract damages or a claim for repossession of the farm, a decision to proceed against the 1984 judgment would not foreclose a subsequent decision to repossess the property in connection with Witte’s 1985 default. In contrast, Witte asserted that the bankruptcy court acted properly in disallowing Bral’s claim on the basis of the doctrine of election of remedies which, according to Witte, requires a seller suing for breach of contract to elect to pursue either the remedy of damages under the contract or repossession of the premises. {See n. 4, infra). Moreover, Witte argued that because Bral and Devlieger were permitted under Paragraph 11 of the contract to retain Witte’s predefault installment payments in the event of a breach or default, the forfeiture of these payments, together with repossession of the farm, constituted full satisfaction of any and all damages to which Bral and Devlieger were entitled.
Acknowledging the difficulty of resolving the parties’ dispute equitably, as well as the fact that the issue was one of first impression under Illinois law, the district court agreed with Bral and reversed the bankruptcy court’s decision to the extent that the bаnkruptcy court had disallowed Bral’s claim arising out of the 1984 judgment. The district court concluded:
... Mr. Bral’s claim for damages arising out of the 1984 breach is not a claim for damages under the sales contract, because Mr. Bral has already obtained a judgment on the contract claim which accrued in 1984. Therefоre, Mr. Witte’s obligation to pay the remaining amount of the 1984 judgment does not arise out of the operation of the sales contract, but arises out of the court order that established Mr. Witte’s liability.
Consequently, the district court allowed Bral’s claim on the 1984 judgment, finding nothing inconsistent in permitting Bral to collect on the judgment аnd to receive the benefits of repossessing the farm.
II.
Were this merely a case in which Bral and Devlieger had attempted to recover money damages against Witte
after
repossessing the farm, case law and the doctrine of election of remedies,
4
as currently ap
*807
plied under Illinois law, would clearly bar Bral from successfully pursuing a claim for damages.
See Wollenberger v. Hoover,
Remedies for a breach of contract are intended to make the injured party whole by compensating him so that he will be in the same position he would have been in if the contract had been fully performed.
See Corbin, Contracts
§ 1122;
Calamari & Perillo, Contracts
§ 14-4. Under Paragraph 11 of the contraсt entered into by the parties, in the event of a breach or default by Witte, Bral and Devlieger had the option to declare the contract forfeited and to retake possession of the premises while retaining any installment payments
already made
as liquidated damages
in full satisfaction of any and all damages sustained.
Thus, the parties’ own agreement contemplates that a rеpossession of the premises operates as a declaration that the parties’ contract is terminated.
6
It is precisely because under the terms of the contract repossession signifies the termination of all other previously existing contract rights that a subsequent suit for damages by Bral is foreclosed by the doctrine of election of remedies.
See Cala v. Gerami,
*808 If the vendor exercises his option to declare the contract at an end he cannot change his position and thereafter hold the purchaser liable to complete the purchase or pay any part of the unpaid purchase money. The remedy of the vendor by way of cancellation of the contract and the continued liability of the purchaser for the purchase money are totally inconsistent, and the exercise of the former terminates any further liability of the purchaser for the purchase money.
The district court recognized the inсonsistency of an election to repossess followed by a suit for damages; the court found, however, that because Bral was seeking satisfaction of a pre-existing judgment, any installment payment he might recover would result not from a barred claim for damages but from “the court order that established Mr. Witte’s liability.” While this distinction may be of formal significance, we are unpersuaded that simply by characterizing a cause of action for contract damages as a judgment, Bral should be permitted to pursue what amounts to double recovery or, in Witte’s words, “[Bral’s] having his cake and eating it too.” If after Bral repossessеd the farm he were later to recover the defaulted 1984 installment from Witte, Bral would obtain a remedy more generous than the one he and Witte agreed to in their contract. Where such a potential windfall is made possible only by giving credence to the distinction between a “suit” and a “judgment,” we prefer, аs we believe the courts of Illinois would, to disregard this formal distinction in favor of a just and equitable result.
In
Pepper v. Litton,
The bankruptсy courts have exercised [their] equitable powers in passing on a wide range of problems arising out of the administration of bankrupt estates. They have been invoked to the end that fraud will not prevail, that substance will not give way to form, that technical considerations will not prevent substantial justice from bеing done ...
Hence, this Court has held that a bankruptcy court has full power to inquire into the validity of any claim asserted against the estate and to disallow it if it is ascertained to be without lawful existence (citation omitted). And the mere fact that a claim has been reduced to judgment does not prevent such an inquiry.
Id.
at 304-05,
III.
For the above-stated reasons, the district court’s decision allowing Bral to recover the unpaid balance of the 1984 judgment is
Reversed.
Notes
.Bral argues in his brief that he should not be bound by Devlieger’s unilateral decision to repossess the farm. We disagree. Not only does Bral admit to receiving proceeds from the sale of crops harvested from the farm aftеr Devlieger’s alleged "unilateral” repossession, but, as the district court observed, acceptance of Bral’s argument that he is not bound by the acts of his co-seller would force a buyer of property from multiple sellers to accept the risk that each seller may seek separate аnd potentially inconsistent remedies against him in the event of a default.
. Bral's claim with respect to the 1984 judgment represents his half share of the 1984 installment payment of $57,291.33 minus partial payment of the judgment as the result of Witte’s compliance with the state court order.
. The bankruptcy court’s ruling that Bral and Devlieger rеpossessed the farm before they obtained a judgment on the defaulted 1985 installment payment precluded allowance of that portion of Bral’s claim attributable to Witte’s 1985 default.
. An ‘election’ of remedies is the adoption of one of two or more co-existing remedies, with the effect of precluding a rеsort to the others.
Dobbs, Remedies
§ 1.5 at 14 (1973). However, the preclusion of other remedies occurs only if the remedies elected are inconsistent. In Illinois, for one proceeding to act as a bar to another, so far as remedies are concerned, "the remedies must proceed from opposite and irreconcilable claims of right and must be so inconsistent that a party could not logically assume to follow one without renouncing the other.”
Fleming v. Dillon,
. Neither the parties nor the lower courts cite any of the following cases, all of which stand for the proposition that a judgment for an interim installment payment may
not
be enforced after a forfeiture has been declared:
Orzechowski v. Kolodziejski,
. At oral argument, Bral's counsel argued that repossession of the farm by Bral and Devlieger, without more, did not constitute a forfeiture for purposes of Pаragraph 11 of the contract. We have trouble understanding exactly what else would have been required of Bral and Devlieger under Paragraph 11 to demonstrate their intention to forfeit the contract — especially since the right to repossess accrued only in the event that the vendors [Bral and Devlieger] opted to treat the contract as forfeited.