A bill for specific performance on a contract to sell, will ordinarily not be entertained by a court of equity. The buyer will be decreed to pursue his remedies at law. Specific performance is usually neither a necessary nor a practicable remedy. The damages allowed the buyer on suit for failure to carry out

1 Case vs. Hall., 24 Wend., 102.

5 Underwood vs. Wolf, 131 I11., 425 the contract, or the other remedies allowed at law, are usually sufficient to give the buyer full and adequate relief. Where however, the thing to be sold is unique,6 where it has a value distinct and special from the market value, (what is technically called the pretium affedionis), where another thing of the same kind, with this special value, cannot be procured, and where a remedy in damages for a failure to deliver would be uncertain and inadequate,7 in such peculiar cases only, a court of equity will sometimes decree specific performance. But specific performance is never to be considered as a substitute or alternative for damages in an action at law.

Contracts for the sale and assignment of a patent, may be specifically enforced. This is on the ground that the rights to be secured under such a contract, are of such a peculiar nature that the relief, by way of a bill for specific performance, could alone afford a full and complete remedy. It is, however, almost impossible to lay down any fixed rules of general application, as relief of this sort depends on the facts and circumstances of the case itself.

6 Pusey vs. Pusey, 1 Vern., 273. Vol. V.-5.

7 Brady vs. Yost, 55 Pac. Rep., 542.