Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/288

262 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. years, and on default to continue payment the promise was held to be upon sufficient consideration. Scotson V, Pegg,^ in the Exchequer, followed soon after, in which, in consideration of the plaintiff's promise to deliver a cargo of coal to the defendant, he promised the plaintiffs to unload the same in a certain number of days, but did not do so for five days beyond the time, whereby the plaintiffs were put to expense in keeping and maintaining the ship, master, and crew for the extra time. The defence was that the defendant's promise was without consid- eration, because the plaintiffs had previously bound themselves to other persons to deliver the coal to them, or their order, and that said persons, having sold the cargo to tlie defendant, had ordered the plaintiffs to deHver the coal to the defendant, as they well knew. This fact was admitted on demurrer, but the plaintiffs' second promise was held to be a good consideration for the defendant's promise, although they were under prior contract with others to do the very same thing, and so the defendant's promise was held binding, and the plaintiffs had judgment. Wilde, B. said: ** If a person chooses to promise to pay a sum of money in order to induce another to perform that which he has already contracted with a third person to. do, I confess I cannot see why such a promise should not be binding. I accede to the proposition that, if a person contracts with another to do a certain thing, he can- not make the performance of it a consideration for a new promise to the same individual. But there is no authority for the proposi- tion that where there has been a promise to one person to do a certain thing, it is not possible to make a valid promise to another to do the same thing." Martin, B. added, ** The defendant gets a benefit by the delivery of the coals to him, and it is immaterial that the plaintiffs had previously contracted with third parties to deliver to their order." This subject was fully examined in a late case in Massachusetts, Abbott V. Doane,^ in which the two preceding English cases were followed. The facts were that the plaintiff had signed an accom- modation note to a corporation, which the latter had procured to be discounted at a bank for such corporation's own benefit. The note not being paid at maturity, the defendant, who was a stockholder, director, and creditor of said corporation, wished, for some advan- tage to himself^ to have the note paid at once ; and accordingly 1 6 H. & N. 295 (1861). a 163 Mass. 433 (1895).