## Facts

- The Penn proprietors held Pennsylvania and the “three lower counties” (Delaware); Lord Baltimore held Maryland under an overlapping proprietary grant.
- Ambiguous charter descriptions and improved geographic knowledge created competing claims, including disputes over the “fortieth degree” of latitude and a circle around New Castle.
- The parties executed written articles of agreement (May 10, 1732) to settle the boundary by specified survey methods, including a circle around New Castle and lines to be run by appointed commissioners within a set time.
- The agreement included a monetary penalty tied to commissioners’ nonperformance, required mutual conveyances/assurances based on the eventual line, and aimed to protect occupants’ quiet enjoyment.
- The Penns alleged readiness to perform and claimed Lord Baltimore refused to proceed, obstructed execution, and rejected the agreed boundary method.
- The Penns sued in the High Court of Chancery seeking specific performance of the 1732 articles.

## Issues

1. Whether a court of equity in England could decree specific performance of an agreement concerning land and boundary lines located in America when the defendant was personally within the court’s jurisdiction.
2. Whether the 1732 articles were sufficiently certain, fair, and free from material mistake or fraud to warrant specific performance.
3. What form of equitable relief could be granted without directly adjudicating foreign title or possession.

## Decision

- The court held it had jurisdiction to enforce the agreement because the decree would operate in personam against Lord Baltimore, who was subject to the court’s authority.
- The court found the 1732 articles binding and specifically enforceable despite later-discovered geographic/latitudinal uncertainties.
- The court decreed specific performance, requiring cooperation with the commissioners’ survey work and execution of the conveyances and assurances contemplated by the articles.

## Legal Principles

- Equity may decree specific performance of a contract relating to foreign land when the court has personal jurisdiction over the defendant and the relief is framed as personal obedience rather than an in rem determination of foreign title.
- A negotiated boundary-settlement agreement may be enforced as an ordinary contract in equity where it represents a deliberate compromise intended to end ongoing controversy.
- Alleged mistake based on later-improved scientific or geographic understanding does not necessarily defeat specific performance when the parties contracted to resolve uncertainty and accepted the risk of imperfect information.
- Equitable relief concerning foreign land should be structured to compel acts (cooperation, conveyances, assurances) rather than to directly award foreign possession.

## Conclusion

The court enforced the 1732 boundary-settlement articles by specific performance, reasoning that Chancery could act on the defendant personally even though the land lay in America, and that the parties’ compromise remained enforceable despite geographic uncertainty.


Penn v. Lord Baltimore, 1 Ves. Sen. 444, 27 Eng. Rep. 1132 (Ch. 1750)