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Contracts

1916

Consideration

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Performance Of Legal Obligation As A Consideration For A Promise, John B. Waite Jan 1916

Performance Of Legal Obligation As A Consideration For A Promise, John B. Waite

Articles

At a time when the true reasonableness of the common law and its responsiveness to the actualities of life are under criticism, it is interesting to find several cases, within the past year, affirming the old rule that performance of a legal duty is not consideration for a promise. In Vance v. Ellison, (V. Va.) 85 S. E. 776, suit was brought to enjoin the enforcement of a deed of trust executed by plaintiff to defendant, to secure payment of $1000 promised for legal services. It was admitted that when the deed was executed the defendant was already bound by …


A Definition Of Consideration, John B. Waite Jan 1916

A Definition Of Consideration, John B. Waite

Articles

COMPOSING general statements of law is at best a didactic pursuit rather than a practically useful one, however agreeable an occupation it may be. The particulars of the past are not evaded by statement of their essence, and courts tend to guide their rulings by analogy to specific precedents in preference to rules educed therefrom by however studious laymen. And, on the other hand, the general expressions and definitions, so called, formulated by courts themselves, often hastily and hap-hazardly, which have been followed by other courts, do more to confuse the law, and confute its real precision of statement, than …