United States or Kuwait ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Three months after date, I promise to pay to James Smith, or bearer, one hundred dollars, value received. John Brown. A note thus payable to Smith or bearer, or to him or his order, is called negotiable, because it may be sold or transferred to any other person, who has the same power to sue for and collect the money, as Smith, the original promisee.
2 When, however, what is stipulated for is permission to do some specific act, that permission cannot extend beyond the person of the promisee: for instance, if a slave stipulates for permission to cross the promisor's land, he cannot himself be denied passage, though his master can.
A person buying a note after it has become due, takes it at his peril. Although the holder may sue it in his own name, the maker may offset any demands which he had against the promisee before it was transferred, as in the case of notes not negotiable.
Stipulation, however, as has already been remarked, derive their validity from the consent of the contracting parties, and we therefore introduced a necessary emendation in respect also of this rule of law, by providing that a stipulation shall be good which bargains for performance either after the death, or the day before the death, of either promisee or promisor.
The reason why this is an overclaim is that in stipulations of this sort it is the promisor who has the election, and who may give the slave or the money, whichever he prefers; consequently if the promisee sues, alleging that either the money alone, or the slave alone, ought to be conveyed to him, he deprives his adversary of his election, and thereby puts him in a worse position, while he himself acquires an undue advantage.
It is hard to see the propriety of erecting any detriment which an instrument may disclose or provide for, into a consideration, unless the parties have dealt with it on that footing. In many cases a promisee may incur a detriment without thereby furnishing a consideration.
A promise to carry might be made and accepted on the understanding that it was mere matter of favor, without consideration, and not legally binding. In that case the detriment of delivery would be incurred by the promisee as before, but obviously it would be incurred for the sole purpose of enabling the promisor to carry as agreed.
2 Of two joint promisors one may be bound absolutely, while performance by the other is postponed to a future day, or made to depend on a condition; but such postponement or such condition in no way prevents the stipulator from at once suing the one who was bound absolutely. From his master's legal capacity a slave derives ability to be promisee in a stipulation.
Parties who are not present together, therefore, can form these contracts by letter, for instance, or by messenger: and they are in their nature bilateral, that is, both parties incur a reciprocal obligation to perform whatever is just and fair, whereas verbal contracts are unilateral, one party being promisee, and the other alone promisor.
In the case of a binding promise that it shall rain to-morrow, the immediate legal effect of what the promisor does is, that he takes the risk of the event, within certain defined limits, as between himself and the promisee. He does no more when he promises to deliver a bale of cotton.
Word Of The Day