A court of equity will not decree specific performance, where either by want of appropriate means and instrumentalities, while pursuing its ordinary modes of administering justice, it will be unable to enforce the decree when made, or performance by the defendant is impossible, or where from the facts and circumstances of the case the decree for any reason would be nugatory.59

The cases in which specific performance has been refused upon the grounds above stated, in any way related to land contracts, may be grouped in the following classes:

(a) Contracts Requiring Continuous Service.

The law is now well settled that equity will not affirmatively decree specific performance of a land contract, requiring continuous acts involving skill, judgment or technical knowledge, such as contracts for the erection of buildings in connection with the sale of real estate,60 or contracts for the transfer of

56. George v. Schuman, supra; Mier v. Hadden, 148 Mich. 488.

57. George v. Schuman, supra, distinguishing Axe v. Tolbert, 179 Mich. 566.

58. Axe v. Tolbert, 179 Mich. 566.

59. Pomeroy's Equity Juris., Sec. 2179, 2178, Vol 5, 2nd Edition.

60. Green v. Bay City & Port Huron Railroad Company, 158

Michigan 436. "Specific enforcement of a contract will not be required which provides for unperformed services of the complainants of such a personal and continuing character that supervision by the court is impracticable in securing performance of complainants' undertaking."

Heth v. Smith, 175 Mich. 328. "In equity a parol contract to lease real estate in exchange for personal services, such as keeping or furnishing a home for the vendor, during his natural life where the action is instituted by the vendor.61 (b) Incapacity of Parties to Perform.

Where the vendor does not have the title to the real estate equity will not compel specific performance by the vendee of a land contract at the instance of the vendor. If, however, the vendor acquires title either before suit or before the decree has been entered, specific performance will be granted.62 In line with this doctrine it has been held that specific performance will be denied where defendant never owned the land nor could he be compelled to buy and convey it to complainant,63 but where the defendants had a contract for the purchase of a land for the life of the tenant who binds himself in lieu of rent to perform personal services of an indefinite nature, not to be completed in one act, and involving special knowledge, skill, judgment or integrity, or like qualities depending on individual ability requiring the continuous performance of duties, such that a court of equity could not well regulate, is not specifically enforceable.

Pomeroy Equity Jur., Sec. 2183, 2nd Ed. "Even if the contract was sufficiently specific, so that the party, when ordered to operate the railroad would know the manner and mode in which the order was to be obeyed, still the question of obedience to the order must necessarily be left open. And the question of obedience to such an order might come up for solution, not once, as in the case of the archway, the erection of which was ordered in Storer v. Great Western Railway, but in instances innumerable and for an indefinite time. Instead of the final order being the end of litigation, it would be its fruitful and continuous source, and that, too, of litigation not in the regular course of judicial proceedings, but irregularly, on a summary application. And such application to be made by either party, one when he conceived there had not been a faithful compliance with the order, and the other when exemption from some provision might be claimed, on the ground of inability or unforeseen events." Port Clinton R. R. Co. v. Cleveland & T. R. Co., 13 Ohio St. 544, 556; Pin-gle v. Connor, 66 Mich. 187; Blan-chard v. Detroit L. & L. R. Co., 31 Mich. 43; Weed v. Torrey, 2 Doug. Mich. 344; Bourget v. Monroe, 58 Mich. 563; Buck v. Smith, 29 Mich. 166; Green v. Bay City R. Co., 158 Mich. 436; Sanquirisco v. Bene-detti, 1 Bar. 315.

61. Pomeroy on Equity, Sec. 2193, 2nd Ed.; Heith v. Smith, 175 Mich. 328.

62. Pomeroy Eq. Jur., Sec. 2178, 2nd Ed.; Guild v. Atkinson R. R., 57 Kansas 70, 51 Am. 33 L. R. A. 77.

63. Laubengayer v. Rohde, 167 Mich. 605.

tract of land specific performance may be enforced where it was within their power to obtain title.64 Mere pecuniary inability to perform the contract is not such incapacity as will justify the court in withholding specific performance.65

The rule that specific performance will not be decreed against a defendant unable to perform applies even in cases where the defendant's inability to perform results from his own wrongful act as where a vendor after making the contract and before suit conveyed it to an innocent third party, in such cases specific performance will be refused although the defendant may be held for damages.66 In case the contract purchaser from the vendor is not an innocent purchaser and he enters into a contract to purchase with full knowledge of a prior outstanding contract, then specific performance may be had against both the original vendor and his vendee.67