Chamberlain entered a contract
with Parker to have a painting of himself painted. Parker never got
around to finishing the painting.
Chamberlain sued for breech of
contract.
Under the terms of the
contract, Parker didn't get the money until the painting was complete, so
Chamberlain was trying to force Parker's performance.
Since Parker was not a
famous artist, a painting of Chamberlain probably only had value to
Chamberlain, so monetary damages were not appropriate
(since they would be $0).
The Trial Court found for
Chamberlain and told Parker to complete the painting.
In general, courts do not
like to force a party to do something (aka require
specific performance), they prefer to force the party
to pay monetary damages.
The reason for this is that
it can be easily assessed whether or not monetary damages have been
paid. But if Parker paints a painting of Chamberlain because he is
forced to, and does a poor job and the painting is ugly, what is the
court to do? How do you assess whether or not Parker was making an ugly
painting on purpose because he was angry about losing the case? And
should the courts make him do it again? Specific
performance just causes headaches for the courts they'd rather
not deal with.
But in this case, the market
doesn't reflect the value of the painting to the plaintiff. Since the
painting had a market value of $0, it wasn't reasonable to force Parker
to pay monetary damages.
Compare to Jacob
& Young v. Kent (230 N.Y. 239, 129 N.E. 889 (N.Y. 1921))
where the market value was the same as the value to the plaintiff.
Market value is a
reasonable standard in some cases, but it is not a reasonable standard
in other cases.
