Specific performance and injunction - Next Generation Bar Exam

1. A buyer of 1,000 bushels of standard-grade wheat seeks specific performance after the seller refuses to deliver. On what ground will the court deny it?

   Damages are adequate because substitute wheat is readily available. Fungible goods can be bought on the market, so the buyer can cover and recover the difference.

2. Why is specific performance routinely available to a buyer of land?

   Each parcel of land is treated as unique. Money damages cannot buy an identical parcel, so the legal remedy is inadequate.

3. Why do courts often refuse specific performance of contracts requiring extensive ongoing performance, such as construction?

   The court would face undue difficulty supervising performance. Damages are preferred when enforcement would require continuing judicial oversight.

4. What remedy is commonly granted to enforce a valid covenant not to compete?

   An injunction. Damages are often inadequate because the loss of customers and goodwill is hard to measure.

5. When a seller of land cannot convey all of the promised acreage, what may the buyer obtain?

   Specific performance with an abatement of the price. The buyer takes what the seller can convey and pays less for the shortfall.

6. When is specific performance available for breach of contract?

   When damages would be an inadequate remedy. Equitable relief is discretionary and supplements the legal remedy rather than replacing it.

7. Which equitable defense bars relief when the plaintiff acted inequitably in the transaction at issue?

   Unclean hands. The misconduct must relate to the matter in which relief is sought.

8. A seller agrees to sell a rare signed baseball card and then refuses. What remedy is the buyer likely to obtain?

   Specific performance, because the card is unique. Damages cannot purchase an equivalent item when the goods are one of a kind.

9. Which equitable defense bars specific performance when the plaintiff unreasonably delayed in seeking relief, to the defendant's prejudice?

   Laches. Laches turns on unreasonable delay and resulting prejudice, not merely on the passage of time.

10. What degree of certainty must contract terms have for specific performance?

    Certain enough for the court to frame an order and determine compliance. A contract definite enough for damages may still be too indefinite for specific performance.

11. On what basis do most courts allow a seller of land to obtain specific performance?

    Mutuality of remedy, since the buyer could obtain specific performance. The seller's remedy is effectively an action for the price.

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