such refusal to increase the liability of the one breaking the agreement, and must, therefore, so long as such refusal is not recalled, abstain from going on with the work he has to perform under the contract; the other'finds a mutual abandonment of the compact, or an abandonment by one who, under the law, has a legal right to abandon it, and leads inevitably to the conclusion that there is no contract to be performed by any one, and hence that no damages for breach thereof can be incurred, and that no liability for the contract price can possibly exist. That the Massachusetts supreme court, in Daniels v. Newton, did not intend to decide contrary to our views is apparent from the fact that the same court, only six months later, without overruling Daniels v. Newton, or even regarding it as at all bearing on the question, expressly recognized and enunciated the doctrine on which we rest our decision. In Collins v. Delaporte, 115 Mass. 159, that court says: “A party to an executory contract may stop its performance by an explicit order, and will subject himself only to such damages as will compensate the other party for being deprived of its benefits.”
It is urged that the plaintiffs were bound to build the creamery despite the defendant’s refusal to go on with the contract, because there were other parties to the contract who could have held the plaintiffs liable in damages had they, acting upon defendant’s breach of the agreement, refrained from constructing the building. We see no principle on which the other parties could have recovered from the plaintiffs damages under these circumstances. Their agreement was with all the defendants, including this appellant. They did not agree to build a creamery for the other defendants, and take their responsibility for the contract price. It furnishes an ample justification for a failure to go on with the work that one of the contracting parties—perhaps the only responsible one—has by a breach of the contract made it impossible for the plaintiffs to complete the building, and charge such party with the contract price. The contract was entire, and the plaintiffs could not be compelled to perform it as to and for only a portion of the contracting parties. It is illogical to assert that the plaintiffs would have been liable to the other parties had they, acting upon the appellant’s
