## Facts

- Donald Ronnie Cumbest transferred a high-fidelity stereo system to Bedford Harris under a notarized bill of sale and a separate notarized option allowing Cumbest to repurchase by 5:00 p.m. on June 7, 1976.
- Cumbest claimed the transaction was substantively a loan with the equipment intended as collateral.
- On June 7, 1976, Cumbest alleged Harris intentionally avoided him to prevent timely tender under the option.
- That evening, Cumbest left the repurchase money with Harris’s landlord; the funds were later placed into the court registry after the landlord and her attorney were joined.
- Cumbest described the stereo system as a custom assemblage built over roughly fifteen years, including hard-to-obtain and custom-made or modified components, giving it personal and sentimental value beyond market price.

## Issues

1. Whether the stereo system had such peculiar, sentimental, or unique value, and was so difficult to replace, that legal remedies were inadequate and equity could order specific performance of the repurchase agreement for personal property.
2. Whether the chancery court erred by dismissing the complaint after a threshold hearing limited to the uniqueness/special-value question.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Mississippi reversed the chancery court’s dismissal and remanded.
- The court held that the stereo system was sufficiently unique and specially valuable to fall within an exception permitting specific performance for contracts involving personal property.
- Because the plaintiff’s evidence of uniqueness and irreplaceability was uncontradicted, the chancery court should have taken equitable jurisdiction and proceeded to consider the merits and appropriate relief.

## Legal Principles

- Specific performance is generally not ordered for contracts involving personal property because market-value damages are often adequate.
- An exception exists when the chattel is of peculiar, sentimental, or unique value, is not readily obtainable in the market, or otherwise cannot be adequately compensated by money damages.
- The adequacy of legal remedies is the central inquiry; when damages (and related legal remedies) cannot make the plaintiff whole due to unique value or irreplaceability, equitable relief may be appropriate.
- When a plaintiff plausibly alleges and supports that personal property is uniquely valuable and legal remedies are inadequate, a chancery court should entertain the case rather than dismiss it at the threshold.

## Conclusion

The court held that a custom-assembled stereo system, developed over many years with difficult-to-replace and personally tailored components, could justify specific performance because its loss could not be adequately remedied by market-value damages, requiring the chancery court to proceed on the merits.


Cumbest v. Harris, 363 So. 2d 294 (Miss. 1978)