Butler v. Horwitz
| Decision Date | 01 December 1868 |
| Citation | 19 L.Ed. 149,74 U.S. 258,7 Wall. 258 |
| Parties | BUTLER v. HORWITZ |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
ERROR to the Court of Common Pleas for Maryland.
Daniel Bowly, on the 18th of February, 1791, leased to Conrad Orendorf a lot of ground in the city of Baltimore for ninety-nine years, renewable forever, reserving rent in the following words: 'Yielding and paying therefor to the said Daniel Bowly, his heirs and assigns, the yearly rent or sum of 15, current money of Maryland, payable in English golden guineas, weighing five pennyweights and six grains, at thirty-five shillings each, and other gold and silver at their present established weight and rate according to act of Assembly, on the 1st day of January in each and every year during the continuance of the present demise.'
On the 1st of January, 1866, one Horwitz was the owner of the rent and reversion, and a certain Butler of the leasehold interest in the lot. It being agreed that the 15 was equal to $40 in gold and silver, Butler tendered to Horwitz the amount of the annual rent, that is to say $40, then due, in currency, which Horwitz refused to receive, and brought suit to recover the value of the gold in currency, which being on the 1st of January, 1866, at a premium of $1.45, was $58. The court below gave judgment in favor of Horwitz for that amount with interest, $59.71. The case was thereupon brought here by Butler, for review.
Mr. J. R. Quin, for the plaintiff in error; Mr. B. F. Horwitz, contra.
the CHIEF JUSTICE delivered the opinion of the court.
The principles which determined the case of Bronson v. Rodes,* will govern our judgment in this case.
The obvious intent of the contract now before us was to secure payment of a certain rent in gold and silver, and thereby avoid the fluctuations to which the currency of the country, in the days which preceded and followed the establishment of our independence, had been subject, and also all future fluctuations incident to arbitrary or uncertain measures of value, whether introduced by law or by usage.
It was agreed in the court below that the rent due upon the lease, reduced to current gold and silver coin, was, on the first day of January, 1866, forty dollars; and judgment was rendered on the 27th June, 1866, for fifty-nine dollars and seventy-one cents.
This judgment was rendered as the legal result of two propositions: (1.) That the covenant in the lease required the delivery of a certain amount of gold and silver in payment of rent; and (2.) That damages for non-performance must be assessed in the legal tender currency.
The first of these propositions is, in our judgment, correct; the second is, we think, erroneous.
It is not necessary to go at length into the grounds of this conclusion. We will only state briefly the general propositions on which it rests; some of which have been already stated more fully in Bronson v. Rodes.
A contract to pay a certain sum in gold and silver coin is, in substance and legal effect, a contract to deliver a certain weight of gold and silver of a...
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...in gold did not deal with situations corresponding to those now presented. Bronson v. Rodes, 7 Wall. 229, 19 L.Ed. 141; Butler v. Horwitz, 7 Wall. 258, 19 L.Ed. 149; Dewing v. Sears, 11 Wall. 379, 20 L.Ed. 189; Trebilcock v. Wilson, 12 Wall. 687, 20 L.Ed. 460; Thompson v. Butler, 95 U.S. 69......
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