Warning

Info

LSD+

Learn more

14-day free trial

Are you an applicant looking for personal statement support? LSD+ includes LSAdmit. Learn more about LSAdmit.

Launch promo: LSD100 for $100 off 1 year, or LSD30 for $10 off for 3 months

Promotion ends in:

Briefs

53,476 briefs at your fingertips.

DeepDive for every brief

Read as quickly or deeply as you want.

DeepDive for Lucy v. Zehmer

196 Va. 493, 84 S.E.2d 516 (1954)

DeepDiveHighlight a legal term to see the definition

Font size -+
Lucy v. Zehmer | Case Brief DeepDive
Majority opinion, author: Buchanan, J.
Level 1
Click below 👇 to DeepDive

This case involves a dispute over the sale of a farm between W. O. Lucy and J. C. Lucy (complainants) and A. H. Zehmer and Ida S. Zehmer (defendants). The complainants seek specific performance of a contract for the sale of the Ferguson farm for $50,000, which was written and signed by the defendants. The defendants claim that the contract was not serious and was made in jest, but the complainants argue that it was a valid agreement. The authenticity of Zehmer's signature and the seriousness of the agreement are in question, as Zehmer had consumed a significant amount of alcohol on the night in question. Witnesses have conflicting testimonies, and clear evidence is needed to support the defendants' defense. The lower court dismissed the complainants' bill, and the appeal is based on this action.

Zehmer's alleged intoxication does not invalidate the contract, as his detailed testimony and other evidence contradict his claim. The appearance of the contract, the lengthy discussion before signing, and the fact that Mrs. Zehmer also signed it suggest that the transaction was serious. Lucy's actions, such as financing the purchase and hiring an attorney to examine the title, support his belief that the contract was binding. The law looks to a person's outward expression of intention rather than their secret intentions. The contract is binding regardless of whether it resulted from a serious offer and acceptance or a serious offer and acceptance in secret jest. The defendants' argument against enforcing the contract is not supported by any usual grounds for opposing specific performance, and the purchase price was deemed fair. The case is being sent back to the lower court to require the defendants to fulfill their contractual obligations as requested by the plaintiffs.

LSD+ Case Briefs

Features

  • DeepDive for detailed case analysis
  • Over 50,000 existing case briefs
  • Instant briefs for another 6,000,000 cases
  • Highlight dictionary for legal term definitions
  • Social learning with chat and high points

Over 50,000 Cases Briefed

LSD+ gives you access to over 50,000 case briefs, more than anyone else. Be the first to email us the website of a case brief product that offers you more case briefs and we'll give you a free year of LSD+.

14-Day Free Trial

Unlimited access. Read as much content as you want during your trial with no device limitations. Cancel any time during your trial and keep access for the full 14 days.

Integrated Legal Dictionary

Lawyers and judges love to use big words. And Latin, for some reason.

Highlight a legal term in LSD Briefs and get an instant, plain English definition. Try highlighting 'contract' or 'performance' in the DeepDive above. No need to search or read through a list of definitions, simply highlight the words you don’t know and our LSDefine integration will instantly give you a definition to any of over 30,000 legal terms.

DeepDive

DeepDive allows you to explore legal cases like never before. DeepDive offers multiple levels of case summaries, which empowers you to quickly and easily find the information you need to stay on top of readings. Easily navigate through summary levels and click on any text to get more detail, all the way down to the original legal case text.

Brief anything. Instantly.

Our proprietary state-of-the-art system can instantly brief over 6,000,000 US cases. That means we can probably brief that case that your professor assigned last night when she sent you a poorly scanned pdf and told you to read every third paragraph. Or maybe she uploaded it to Canvas and didn’t really tell you to read it, but you know you probably should. Tenure does wild things to good people.

Social Learning with Chat and High Points

Study groups are a great way to learn and explore a case. LSD has chat rooms for each case to let you ask questions across the community and hear what other students struggled with and how they put it all together. Learn the key points of every case from other LSD+ users and share your knowledge with LSD High Points.

Real-Time Brief Feedback

Don’t settle for mistakes in briefs that have been there for 10 years and never fixed. Find an issue or something missing from a brief? Down vote and we will make improvements. All of our case brief editors graduated from from T14 law schools.

No ads

Ads suck. We get it.

But we still have to pay the bills.

Hide all the ads with LSD+.

Proofreader

Ever read an email you just sent and realize Professsor was spelled lwrong? We have.

Proofreading powered by cutting-edge artificial intelligence.

Way better than Word. Easy to use.

1L memo? English your 3rd language? Need a law firm cover letter proofread?

LSD+ has you covered.

User DMs

Want to connect with someone on LSD? Send a DM.

Connect with your cohort and crush law school together.

Spoiler: You can make friends at law school outside your section. LSD+ DMs can help.

LSD brings people together. With DMs on LSD+ that is more true than ever.

We can’t make meeting an online friend IRL less awkward, but we will make it easier with DMs on LSD+

Discounts

Become part of the team with LSD+.

Companies will pay us to link to their products. With LSD+ we pass our affiliate fees back to you in the form of product discounts or rebates.

Look no further than LSD+ where resources are easy to find and can carry big savings

Use the products you were going to use anyway, but at a discount.

LSAdmit

Are you an applicant looking for an affordable option for admissions consulting and personal statement review?

With LSAdmit, LSD+ is just what you need.

With LSAdmit, you get access to Molly, your AI consultant, who will help guide you through your law school application journey

Molly provides personalized, affordable, and unlimited guidance through every step of writing the perfect personal statement.

Start your journey with LSAdmit today!

Pay what you can

What the hell? Locking features behind paywalls?

Doesn't this perpetuate the inequality that LSD purports to fight against?

This is absolutely something we are aware of.

If LSD+ is too expensive, just make a free LSD account and shoot us an email (myaccount@lsd.law) from the email associated with your account with what you can pay and we will send you an invoice. We need to charge something to keep trolls off of our chat rooms and DMs. We don’t need your name, or why LSD+ would be a financial hardship, just an email that says “Hi, it is hard for me to afford LSD. I would like LSD for $XX dollars, please.” where XX is a number between 1 and 140.

General

General chat about the legal profession.
main_chatroom
👍 Chat vibe: 0 👎
Help us make LSD better!
Tell us what's important to you
17:24
i plan to go in public interest, i wont have that kinda money lol
omg same
I also don't feel bad for Fulbrights. They'll be alright
17:24
i'll be lucky to afford a home lol
17:24
omg yess
International status generally being a debuff sucks tho for sure
LegalUsername
17:26
There are waitlist sessions for GULC? I never got one after receiving the SPWL.
LegalUsername
17:27
Or maybe it's because I got it yesterday?
SplitOnMe
17:27
yeah they happened a while ago
theres one for NU coming up
17:29
Georgetown waitlists 4000 people a year, they basically have to divvy the waitlistees up across multiple sessions over time
yeah I'll be logged into the NU one so they don't ding me for missing but no shot I'll actually be able to pay attention bc I'll be working
17:30
Imagine being the admissions staffer(s) who need to monitor Q&A for a 4,000 person zoom
USNWR needs to just bump schools back 20 places if they waitlist more than like 10% of apps
17:32
Penn Purge, the reprise
Everyone who was on the WL at the time got that invite but you might not have gotten it if you applied later
Re: GULC WL session
i didnt get it but i believe i received the wl notif after the email went out which like, fair
17:34
It *is* somewhat tricky to plan waitlists, because there are a whole bunch of subgroups you need there. Not just the stats you need to tune and needs people fill (URM, veteran, regional balance, international, STEM), but buckets like "These are the specific STEM majors we might take if we have a bunch of STEM majors go elsewhere, and we've locked down our GPA median, and we need to shore up our LSAT median, and our aid budget is almost exhausted so we need people that would accept a waitlist A with minimal aid (not the 180s)
17:38
And how much "padding" you need in your waitlist is inversely related to how patient applicants will be for that school (HYS can cover their bases with a small waitlist because most people on the list would drop everything and commit; Georgetown needs a large waitlist because a lot of people on their list will end up with better options)
17:38
But even understanding why schools do this, the result sucks for anyone on the WL
kimchi queen if you see this im sorry but i dont have the talent to paint birds on my nails and i have shaky hands today so i went with skittle nails
KimchiQueen
17:47
@manifestT14acceptances: Haha no need to apologize! Skittles and candy style nail art is super cute!
LegalUsername
17:48
Just praying for the WL gods now :(
trees1234567
17:49
Oh damn penn wtf sorry to everyone that got hit
@KimchiQueen: thank you i do like how they came out i always feel bad fielding suggestions and then doing something else
KimchiQueen
18:07
Suggestions can always be used next time! No need to feel bad :)
any idea if we will hear from usc today?
even if it is an R, I just want to know. I want my cycle over so badly
@jb2028: how many people are part of the hls slack rn?
LSD+ is ad-free, with DMs, discounts, case briefs & more.