Opinion
Argued November 6, 1980
Decision released December 9, 1980
Action to recover damages for breach of a contract to purchase real estate, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of Litchfield and tried to the court, N. O'Neill, J.; judgment for the plaintiffs, from which the defendants appealed to this court. No error.
Paul E. Potanka, for the appellants (defendants).
Edward W. Manasse, for the appellees (plaintiffs).
The only issue in this appeal is whether the contract for the sale of real estate entered into by the parties is enforceable in light of the statute of frauds, General Statutes 52-550. The defendants maintain that a contingency clause in the agreement which provided that the agreement was "subject to purchasers obtaining mortgage in amount of $25,000 for 30 years at not more than 8 1/2%" rendered the parties' written memorandum too ambiguous, uncertain and indefinite to satisfy the statute.
The contract in this case was entered into before the effective date of Public Acts 1976, No. 76-69.
A memorandum does not satisfy the statute of frauds if it lacks essential terms concerning the performance contemplated by the contract. Lynch v. Davis, 181 Conn. 434, 438-39, 435 A.2d 977 (1980); Restatement (Second), Contracts 207 (Tent. Draft 1973). "The function of the statute is evidentiary, to prevent enforcement through fraud or perjury of contracts never in fact made." Lynch v. Davis, supra.
The clause challenged as uncertain in the present case was not a promise in the agreement to be performed by the parties, but rather was a condition precedent to performance. See Lach v. Cahill, 138 Conn. 418, 421, 85 A.2d 481 (1951); Calamari Perillo, Contracts (2d Ed. 1977), pp. 385, 389. Moreover, the condition was fulfilled because the defendants actually obtained a mortgage commitment in the desired amount for thirty years at 8 1/2 percent per year. Under these circumstances we need not consider the applicability of the statute of frauds because, if we assume that the statute applied, it was satisfied. Heyman v. CBS, Inc., 178 Conn. 215, 220-21, 423 A.2d 887 (1979). The trial court correctly allowed the plaintiffs to enforce the contract.