The Law of Contracts, Volume 1

Samuel Williston

Baker, Voorhis & Company, 1920 - Contracts

Contents

• INTRODUCTORY: 1
• Negotiable instruments: 7
• Bilateral and unilateral contractsBifactoral and unifactoral obligatior: 13
• Genuineness of consent: 20
• References are to sections: 25
• Fession of intention is not an offer: 32
• Ar ements preliminary to written contracts: 39
• CAPACITY OF PARTIES INSANE AND INTOXICATED: 44
• A offer must be communicated Rewards 33: 47
• as implied in fact contracts for services 36: 54
• Section: 56
• es and agreements of service indefinite as to time 39: 60
• es and agreements indefinite as to price 41: 67
• Mers and agreements in which the promisee is given an option 44: 73
• Miscellaneous indefinite promises 46: 79
• The use of the mail or telegraph must have been authorized in order that: 83
• hjection by the offeree 51: 86
• When a letter of acceptance or of revocation is received within the meaning: 89
• Expiration of time stated in the offer: 90
• Indirect communication of revocation vi: 97
• Revocation of offers for unilateral contracts 6: 105
• Effect of delay in the delivery of the offer: 112
• Communication may be necessary to acceptance of unilateral cc atracts: 118
• Acceptance in bilateral contracts requires communication: 126
• If an offer prescribes the place time or manner of acceptance its terms mi: 132
• Added terms requested as a favor do not invalidate an acceptance: 138
• Implication of assent and counter promise 90: 153
• Qualification of principles of the preceding section: 163
• Silent inaction with intent to accept: 171
• When mistake will prevent the formation of a contract 95: 178
• Place of contract 97: 186
• An insufficient bilateral agreement may sometimes by performance on one side: 188
• Forbearance or promise of forbearance as consideration 135: 189
• Differing modern tests of consideration 100: 192
• Technical meaning of benefit and detriment 102a: 198
• A distinct principle is necessary to explain bilateral contracts 103a: 204
• Reasons for preferring Leakes definition 103d: 211
• Written as well as oral promises need consideration 107: 224
• Consideration distinguished from motive 111: 230
• Adequacy of consideration 115: 239
• Recital of consideration in unsealed written agreements 115b: 251
• Payment or promise of payment of a debt is not valid consideration 120: 257
• Promise of payment or payment of part of a debt by one joint debtor as con: 263
• Composition agreements with several creditors are supported by sufficient: 269
• Performance or promise to perform any obligation previously existing under: 275
• Unsoundness of arguments sustaining such agreements 130a: 281
• Analogous but distinguishable cases 131b: 287
• Consideration void in part 134: 293
• Construction of agreements to forbear 136: 300
• Estoppel as a substitute for consideration 139: 307
• Mutuality 140: 315
• Promises in consideration of an act previously done at the request of the prom: 323
• A previous moral obligation is generally held an insufficient consideration: 329
• Promises to rectify mistakes or previous illegal transactions 150: 335
• acceptance 81: 343
• A new promise or acknowledgment is sufficient whether made before or after: 349
• Acknowledgments qualified by refusal or statement of inability to pay 168: 355
• Illustrations of insufficient acknowledgment 172: 361
• Partial payment must be voluntary 175: 366
• When a conditional new promise needs acceptance 180: 372
• Promises without consideration not to plead the Statute of Limitations 184: 378
• To whom a new promise must be made 189: 384
• New promise or part payment by a partner 192: 390
• New promise or part payment made by a surety 195: 396
• A new promise based on a previous agreement within the Statute of Frauds 199: 402
• Waiver 203: 408
• Adoption of a seal 208: 416
• How far intent to deliver must be accompanied with actual delivery 211: 423
• Acceptance of a sealed instrument containing promises by the acceptor does: 426
• Statutes changing the common law of sealed instruments 218: 432
• Ealry law as to the validity of an infants contract 223: 438
• Transactions which cannot be avoided by an infant 228: 446
• Whether the privilege may be exercised against a subsequent purchaser: 452
• Restoration of consideration 238: 459
• Liability for necessaries 240: 466
• Money advanced for the purchase of necessaries 243: 472
• False representations of age 245: 478
• Actions by and against infants 248: 484
• Insane persons early law 249: 487
• Lunatics contracts valid in some cases 254: 494
• During guardianship lunatics bargains are void 257: 501
• CHAPTER X: 509
• Modern statutes 268: 517
• Convicts spendthrifts aged persons 272: 523
• In some states authority for certain acts is required to be in writing 276: 529
• Apparent authority and estoppel 277: 530
• When an agents authority is irrevocable 280: 537
• Rights and liabilities of the principal where the agency is undisclosed 286: 546
• Rights and liabilities of the principal where the agency is disclosed but: 552
• Defences to actions against an undisclosed principal 292: 559
• When simple contracts binding the principal may be implied 297: 565
• What signatures to negotiable instruments bind the principal 299: 573
• Public agents 305: 579
• Unincorporated associations which are not partnerships 308: 586
• Enforcement of claims against the trust estate 313: 594
• Nature of joint duties 316: 601
• When bligors are bound jointly 322: 609
• of procedure in the enforcement of contractual rights by joint: 616
• er charge of one joint and several debtor releases all 334: 635
• rds not discharge the others 338: 644
• new promise or part payment by a joint or joint and several debtor: 668
• CONTRACTS FOR THE BENEFIT OF THIRD PEISONS: 674
• Further illustrations 35: 680
• Contract to discharge a debt of the promisee 30: 687
• Law of other states 163: 694
• Receipt of property as consideration for a promise to make a payment 570: 700
• Contracts for the sole benefit of inhabitants of a community 473: 708
• What amounts to an assumption of a mortgage: 718
• Mortgagor should be party to the suit 380: 724
• Assumption of liabilities of outgoing partner 388: 730
• Creditors right to sue both debtor and new promisor 393: 736
• Distinction between sole beneficiary cases and others often not observed 396b: 742
• Person incidentally benefited 402: 748
• Exceptions to the nonassignability of choses in action 406: 754
• Assignment of bilateral contracts 412: 762
• Assignment of future rights 414: 769
• Assignability of right to subscribe to stock 416: 775
• Personal responsibility in bilateral contracts as preventing assignment 419: 783
• Express permission of assignment 423: 791
• Whether an unconditional order or bill of exchange may ever be an assign: 800
• Orders on a drawee to pay when he has collected 427: 801
• Formalities requisite for assignment 430: 807
• Rights of the assignee against the debtor 432: 813
• Notice to the debtor as affecting the assignees right against him 433: 820
• Notice to the debtor as affecting the mutual rights of successive assignees 435: 826
• Whether the assignee is subject to equities of third persons 438: 833
• Gifts of intangible choses in action 440: 840
• Right of the debtor to settle with his creditor in spite of partial assignments 444: 849
• BOOK III: 861
• Guaranties of all kinds of obligations included in the statute 453: 867
• No promise is within the statute unless there is another obligation 454: 873
• To whom the promise must be made 460: 881
• of the consideration 464: 887
• Debts originally incurred as joint and several obligations 466: 893
• A new promise whereby the promisor makes the debt of another his own 471: 901
• Importance of distinguishing whether the consideration for a new promise: 909
• From whom the consideration must move 476: 916
• Promise to pay for the purchase of a claim is not within the statute 480: 922
• Promises to indemnify 482: 928
• Guaranties withdrawn from the statute by their connection with a larger: 934
• What is a contract for sale or purchase 488: 941
• What is an interest in land 491: 948
• Part performance of agreements for the sale of land 494: 959
• Agreements not to be performed within a year 495: 966
• Promises to support for a term of years 496: 972
• year 500: 980
• Agreements in consideration of marriage 485: 985
• Contracts performable or performed within a year on one side but not: 988
• Contracts of work and laborThe English rule 508: 995
• Crops and fructus industriales 515: 1001
• Varying language of the fourth and seventeenth sections of the English: 1006
• Choses in action 521: 1007
• Language of American statutes 526: 1015
• Illustrations of the effect of unenforceable contracts as against the original: 1021
• Divisible contracts 531: 1028
• Restoration or recovery in specie of what has been given or received 535: 1036
• CHAPTER XIX: 1046
• Acceptance by dealing with the goods as owner 544: 1052
• Acceptance under a mistake 550: 1058
• Sections: 1059
• Receipt of goods in the hands of buyer 557: 1066
• Part of the goods 561: 1072
• Time of payment 566: 1079
• Nonperformance of provisions of a written memorandum caused by a party: 1080
• Contents of memorandumConsideration 570: 1085
• Contents of the memorandum Consideration if not necessary may be: 1093
• Contents of memorandumOther terms of the contract 575: 1104
• Intent to make a memorandum is not requisite 579: 1114
• Separate documentsIncorporation by reference 581: 1121
• Separate documentsIncorporation by necessary inference 582: 1128
• Or his agent in that behalf 587: 1136
• Written contracts may be varied by subsequent oral agreement 591: 1143
• is excused 595: 1150

Popular passages

Page 841 - Every person negotiating an instrument by delivery or by a qualified indorsement, warrants — 1. That the instrument is genuine and in all respects what it purports to be; 2. That he has a good title to it; 3. That all prior" parties had capacity to contract; 4. That he has no knowledge of any fact which would impair the validity of the instrument or render it valueless.

Page 137 - But every one has a right to select and determine with whom he will contract, and cannot have another person thrust upon him without his consent. In the familiar phrase of Lord Denman, '• you have the right to the benefit you anticipate from the character, credit, and substance of the party with whom you contract.

Page 787 - A check of itself does not operate as an assignment of any part of the funds to the credit of the drawer with the bank, and the bank is not liable to the holder, unless and until it accepts or certifies the check.

Page 593 - In respect of any act or transaction of his in carrying on the business connected with such property...

Page 885 - But whenever the main purpose and object of the promisor is, not to answer for another, but to subserve some pecuniary or business purpose of his own, involving cither a benefit to himself or damage to the other contracting party, his promise is not within the statute, although it may be in form a promise to pay the debt of another, and although the performance of it may incidentally have the effect of extinguishing that liability.

Page 566 - Where a person signs a bill as drawer, indorser, or acceptor, and adds words to his signature, indicating that he signs for or on behalf of a principal, or in a representative character...

Page 853 - No action shall be brought whereby to charge any executor or administrator, upon any special promise, to answer damages out of his own estate ; or whereby to charge the defendant upon any special promise to answer for the debt, default, or miscarriage of another person...

Page 854 - ... except the buyer shall accept parv of the goods so sold, and actually receive the same, or give something in earnest to bind the bargain, or in part payment...

Page 209 - A valuable consideration in the sense of the law may consist either in some right, interest, profit, or benefit accruing to the one party, or some forbearance, detriment, loss, or responsibility given, suffered, or undertaken by the other.

Page 324 - P. 249, and the conclusion there arrived at seems to be correct in general, "that an express promise can only revive a precedent good consideration, which might have been enforced at law through the medium of an implied promise, had it not been suspended by some positive rule of law; but can give no original cause of action, if the obligation, on which it is founded, never could have been enforced at law, though not barred by any legal maxim or statute provision.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Law of Contracts, Volume 1; 20th-century legal treatises; The Law of Contracts, Samuel Williston
• Author: Samuel Williston
• Publisher: Baker, Voorhis & Company, 1920