Conditions Precedent, Specific Performance, and Unclean Hands, All in One Texas Case!
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A recent case out of Texas, Carnegie Homes & Construction, LLC v. Sahin, No. 01-16-00733-CV, brings up no fewer than three golden discussion topics of contracts law courses: conditions precedent, specific performance, and unclean hands.
The dispute is actually a pretty run-of-the-mill disagreement over a real estate purchase. It just happens to contain a lot of arguments.
First, Carnegie Homes, the buyer, attempted to argue that a number of conditions precedent had never been fulfilled, and therefore none of its obligations to buy the property had been triggered. The contract in question did read it “shall only be effective upon performance of the conditions set forth in Section E of this agreement.” But despite calling the contents of Section E “conditions,” the court read them and found them to be covenants, not conditions, dictating when and how much Carnegie Homes would pay and how much their respective obligations would be. Rather than conditions, Section E contained mutual promises, and indeed, Section E was called “Terms” instead of conditions. Therefore, the reference to conditions was a mistaken one.
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