93 Minn. 247 | Minn. | 1904
Action for specific performance of a contract for the sale of land, in which defendant had judgment and plaintiff appealed.
The facts are as follows: Defendant, the Immigration Land*Company, a corporation created under the laws of the state of Minnesota, and doing business at Little Falls, was the owner of the land in question. The Pine Tree Lumber Company is a corporation created and existing under the laws of the state of Iowa, but doing business at Little Falls, this state. Some of the. officers and stockholders of that corporation are also' stockholders in the Immigration Land Company,
The judgment appealed from must be affirmed. Aside from the question whether the correspondence between the parties amounted to a contract for the sale of the land, there is an entire absence of evidence tending to show that Hinkle, who' assumed to make the contract for defendant, had any authority to do so, either in writing or otherwise. He was not an officer nor a stockholder in either corporation; he was, a clerk in the office of the Pine Tree Lumber Company, and, at the request of the president of the Immigration Land Company, had charge of such correspondence of that company as was referred to him. But there is no evidence that he was ever in any manner authorized to enter into contracts for the sale of land on behalf of the corporation.
Section 4213, G. S. 1894, provides that no estate or interest, other than leases for a term not exceeding one year, shall be created, granted, or assigned unless by act or operation of law, or by deed of conveyance
We had occasion to construe this statute in Newlin v. Hoyt, 91 Minn. 409, 98 N. W. 323. We there held'that a contract for the sale of land which was made and entered into' by an agent of the owner was void and unenforceable in the absence of written authority on his part to make the same. It was there said that the provisions of the statute just referred to, requiring the authority of the agent to be in writing, is as much a part of the statuté of frauds as the requirement that the contract itself be in writing, and must receive the same strict interpretation ; and, for the reason that the agent shown in that case to have contracted for the sale of the land there involved was not authorized in writing by his principal to do so, the contract could not be enforced. That case controls the one at bar, and the judgment appealed from is affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.