Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 1.djvu/368

 cross-bill, he never could be entitled to a decree in his favor, as he stands before the court in the light simply of a wrong-doer, and therefore is not in a condition to set up any claim in his own favor. Neither of these objections, however, is valid. First, in a suit for the specific performance of a bilateral contract, the two sides of which constitute mutual and concurrent conditions, there is, as will be seen presently, no difference between the plaintiff and the defendant as such, i. e., they are both plaintiffs and both defendants, and any decree which is made is in favor of both and against both. Secondly, in such a suit it does not follow, as will be seen hereafter, that the defendant—still less that the defendant alone—has broken the contract. The contract may have been broken by both parties, or it may have been broken by the plaintiff alone. Whenever, therefore, any distinction is to be made between the parties to such a suit, it must be, not between the plaintiff and defendant as such, but between the one who has broken the contract and the one who has not. In most cases, however, no distinction should be made between the parties, so far as regards the mutual accounting, but the vendee should be charged with legal interest on the purchase-money, and the vendor with the rents and profits of the land, as before stated. If, however, a vendee have his money ready at the day fixed for the performance of the contract, and the performance be delayed through the default of the vendor, and the vendee keep himself in constant readiness to perform by letting his money lie idle, he will not be required to pay interest. In such a case, however, the vendee ought to notify the vendor that the money is lying idle; and it would be prudent for him to deposit the money in a bank to a separate account, and to notify the vendor that he had done so. So if a vendor be ready at the day to perform on his part, and the performance be delayed through the default of the vendee, the vendor will seldom, if ever, be liable beyond the rents and profits actually received by him; but if performance be delayed through the default of the vendor, he will be liable for such rents and profits as he might with reasonable diligence have received; and if the property have been injured, or have deteriorated in value, through his fault, he will be required to compensate the vendee in damages for the injury or deterioration in value; and these damages will frequently have to be assessed by a jury.