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Contracts Keyed to Knapp
Harvey v. Dow
Facts
Harvey (P) and her husband decided to build a house on the Dows’ (D) property. The land on which they built their house had been promised to Harvey (P) and her brother by the Dows’ (D) ever since they were kids that at some point in the future, all or some of the 125 acres of land would be transferred to them. The decision to build this house was however made after Dows (D) granted them permission to do so. The plan of financing the building of the house was initially to utilize the Dows’ (D) home equity line of credit but after the unfortunate death of Harvey’s (P) husband in an accident, Harvey (P) decided to use her late husband’s life insurance proceeds to finance the building of the house.Harvey’s father, Jeffery Sr (D) approved the site of the new house, obtained a building permit for his daughter and eventually built a substantial of it himself at that location. Shortly after, father-daughter relationship began to nosedive. The house was completed and Harvey (P) moved in with a cost of $200,000 on her neck. She then sought the deed from Jeffery Sr. (D) so that she would be able to get mortgage and be able to finance other pressing projects. So Harvey (P) brought a suit against the Dows (D) when it became clear that they were not going to execute a deed even after a period of discussion. The suit was to compel the conveyance of unspecified real property to her or for damages, including her claims.She based her theory of her recovery on promissory estoppel which the Dows (D) kicked against with a counterclaim for a declaratory judgment that Harvey (P) had no rights in their property. However, when the case came to trial, there was conflicting evidence as to whether either of the Dows (D) had at one time or the other promised to deed any of their land to their daughter. The trial court found that the Dows (D) statements were not promises that could be enforced even if they were the issue of detrimental reliance, as the promise were without a timeframe and there was no consonance on the primary elements such as the boundaries or size of the property involved. Moreover, Harvey (P) did not state a claim to the promissory estoppel. The state’s highest court however granted a review after Harvey (P) appealed on the ground that the trial court erred by failing to broaden its perspective beyond the Dows (D) generalized statements to determine whether she had made out a promissory estoppel claim.
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