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In The Tribunal Of Conscience: Mills V. Wyman Reconsidered, Geoffrey R. Watson

Scholarly Articles

In this Article, Professor Watson explores the historical record surrounding Mills v. Wyman, 20 Mass (3 Pick) 207 (1825), one of the leading American cases on moral obligation in contract law. In Mills, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court refused to enforce a father's promise to compensate a Good Samaritan who had cared for the father's dying son. Professor Watson combs the historical evidence--court records, census reports, genealogical data, probate records, military rolls, and so on-and argues that the Mills court got both the facts and the law wrong. According to Professor Watson, the father did not make the promise in …