Mills
v. Wyman
3 Pick. [20
Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
This was
an action of assumpsit brought to recover a
compensation for the board, nursing, &c., of Levi Wyman, son of the
defendant, from the 5th to
Did the defendant make his promise in order to get a promise or performance in return from the plaintiff?
There was no consideration for this promise, except what grew out of the relation which subsisted between Levi Wyman and the defendant, and Howe, J., before whom the cause was tried in the court of common pleas, thinking this not sufficient to support the action, directed a nonsuit. To this direction, the plainitff filed exception.
PARKER, C. J.
General rules of law established for the protection and security of honest and fair-minded men, who may inconsiderately make promises without any equivalent, will sometimes screen men of a different character from engagements which they are bound in foro conscietić to perform.
By a promise “without any equivalent,” the court means a promise for which the promisor neither sought nor received a promise or performance in return.
This is a defect inherent in all human systems of legislation. The rule that a mere verbal promise, without any consideration, cannot be enforced by action, is universal in its application, and cannot be departed from to suit particular cases in which a refusal to perform such a promise may be disgraceful.
The promise declared on in this case appears to have been made without any legal consideration. The kindness and services towards the sick son of the defendant were not bestowed at his request. The son was in no respect under the care of the defendant. He was twenty-five years old, and had long left his father's family. On his return from a foreign country, he fell sick among strangers, and the plaintiff acted the part of the good Samaritan, giving him shelter and comfort until he died. The defendant, his father, on being informed of this event, influenced by a transient feeling of gratitude, promises in writing to pay the plaintiff for the expenses he had incurred. But he has determined to break this promise, and is willing to have his case appear on record as a strong example of particular injustice sometimes necessarily resulting from the operation of general rules.
It is said a moral obligation is a sufficient consideration to support an express promise; and some authorities lay down the rule thus broadly; but upon examination of the cases we are satisfied that the universality of the rule cannot be supported, and that there must have been some preexisting obligation, which has become inoperative by positive law, to form a basis for an effective promise. The cases of debts barred by the statute of limitations, of debts incurred by infants, of debts of bankrupts, are generally put for illustration of the rule. Express promises founded on such preexisting equitable obligations may be enforced; there is a good consideration for them; they merely remove an impediment created by law to the recovery of debts honestly due, but which public policy protects the debtors from being compelled to pay. In all these cases there was originally a quid pro quo; and according to the principles of natural justice the party receiving ought to pay; but the legislature has said he shall not be coerced; then comes the promise to pay the debt that is barred, the promise of the man to pay the debt of the infant, of the discharged bankrupt to restore to his creditor what by the law he had lost. In all these cases there is a moral obligation founded upon an antecedent valuable consideration. . . .
The defendant’s promise to pay the plaintiff for his son’s care was
(a) “a moral obligation founded upon an antecedent valuable consideration.”
(b) not
“a moral obligation founded upon an antecedent valuable consideration.”
If moral obligation, in its fullest sense, is a good substratum for an express promise, it is not easy to perceive why it is not equally good to support an implied promise. What a man ought to do, generally he ought to be made to do, whether he promise or refuse. But the law of society has left most of such obligations to the interior forum, as the tribunal of conscience has been aptly called. Is there not a moral obligation upon every son who has become affluent by means of the education and advantages bestowed upon him by his father, to relieve that father from pecuniary embarrassment, to promote his comfort and happiness, and even to share with him his riches, if thereby he will be made happy? And yet such a son may, with impunity, leave such a father in any degree of penury above that which will expose the community in which he dwells to the danger of being obliged to preserve him from absolute want. Is not a wealthy father under strong moral obligation to advance the interest of an obedient, well disposed son, to furnish him with the means of acquiring and maintaining a becoming rank in life, to rescue him from the horrors of debt incurred by misfortune? Yet the law will uphold him in any degree of parsimony, short of that which would reduce his son to the necessity of seeking public charity.
Without doubt there are great interests of society which justify withholding the coercive arm of the law from these duties of imperfect obligation as they are called; imperfect, not because they are less binding upon the conscience than those which are called perfect, but because the wisdom of the social law does not impose sanctions upon them.
A
deliberate promise, in writing, made freely and without any mistake, one which
may lead the party to whom it is made into contracts and expenses,
cannot be broken without a violation of moral duty. But if there was nothing
paid or promised for it, the law, perhaps wisely, leaves the execution of it to
the conscience of him who makes it. It is only when the party making the
promise gains something, or he to whom It is made loses
something, that the law gives the promise validity. And in the case of the
promise of the adult to pay the debt of the infant, of the debtor discharged by
the statute of limitations or bankruptcy, the principle is preserved by looking
back to the origin of the transaction, where an equivalent is to be found. An
exact equivalent is not required by the law; for there being a consideration,
the parties are left to estimate its value: though here the courts of equity
will step in to relieve from gross inadequacy between the consideration and the
promise.
. . .
For the foregoing reasons we are all of opinion that the nonsuit directed by the Court of Common Pleas was right, and that judgment be entered thereon for costs for the defendant.
Under Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 86(1), when a promisor makes a promise in acknowledgment of a benefit previously
received from the promisee, the promise is binding to
the extent necessary to prevent injustice.
§ 86(2) says that the promise is not binding if (a) the benefit was a
gift; (b) the benefit did not unjustly enrich the promisor;
(c) the value of the promise is disproportionate the benefit.
Can you see Mills v. Wyman as consistent with Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 86?