United States Seventh Circuit

In plaintiff's breach of contract suit against a city and a conservancy district, claiming that the defendants breached their option contract to acquire land, district court's judgment is affirmed in part, vacated in part and remanded where: 1) district court correctly concluded that a breach occurred as the defendants' failure to allow the plaintiffs to exercise the option within 18 months of the decision to cancel the flood control project was a breach of the contract; 2) district court did not abuse its discretion in deciding to invoke the equitable remedy of reformation; but 3) district court's order of reformation of an option contract to extend the date by which the option could be exercised in denying plaintiffs' request for money damages is vacated and remanded as the closest that one can come to making plaintiff whole for the shortfall in compensation is to determine how much it lost at the moment that the option became impossible to exercise.

Appellate Information

• Argued 12/07/2009
• Decided 07/29/2010
• Published 07/29/2010

Judges

• WOOD

Court

• United States Seventh Circuit

Counsel