Rabon v. State Finance Corp.
| Decision Date | 17 July 1943 |
| Docket Number | 15562. |
| Parties | RABON v. STATE FINANCE CORPORATION. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
C T. Graydon and F. Ehrlich Thomson, both of Columbia, for appellant.
Richard E. Broome, of Columbia, for respondent.
This action is one for the breach of an alleged contract to extend the time for the payment of a promissory note executed by respondent to appellant, and for the resulting damage allegedly suffered by reason of the filing of the assignment of wages executed and delivered by respondent to secure the payment of the promissory note.
The case was tried before the Honorable A. W. Holman and a jury resulting in a verdict in favor of the respondent for $1,500 actual damages. Thereafter a motion for a new trial was noted and argued. Judge Holman granted a new trial unless the respondent should remit the sum of $1,000 upon the record the respondent remitted the required sum. This appeal is from the judgment in favor of the respondent in the sum of $500.
The appellant questions the judgment by eight exceptions. It is unnecessary to set out the exceptions, it will suffice to state that they raise two legal questions which are determinative of this appeal. They are: (1) Is the contract sued upon supported by a valid, legal consideration? (2) Was any competent, relevant testimony offered to prove that the contract sued upon was supported by a legal, valid consideration? If the answer to the foregoing questions be in the affirmative, the judgment of the lower Court should be affirmed. If the questions be answered in the negative, the trial Judge erred in overruling appellant's motion for a nonsuit and direction of a verdict in its favor, and the judgment of the lower Court should be reversed and the case remanded to the lower Court with direction that judgment be entered for the appellant under rule 27 of this Court.
It is elemental, and requires no citation of authority for the proposition that before a party can recover for the breach of a contract, that he must allege and prove by competent, relevant testimony each one of the material elements of the contract sued on.
It has been the established law of South Carolina since the commencement of its jurisprudence that a contract is an agreement on sufficient consideration, to do or not to do a particular thing. Therefore, the consideration is one of the vital elements of a valid binding contract, and no contract is complete without a valid, legal consideration.
Is the alleged contract here sued upon supported by a valid legal consideration?
The complaint, after alleging the execution and delivery of the promissory note by the respondent and the execution and delivery of the assignment of wages, then goes on to allege that respondent became delinquent in the payment of the promissory note (it was payable in twelve equal monthly installments), and further that the respondent "feeling that the assignment above referred to might be presented to his employer, went to the defendant's office for the purpose of making arrangements to have some one else pay up the entire amount then owing to defendant in order to prevent the possibility of the filing of said assignment, and at which time the defendant through its servant, agent and employee, Fred C. Patterson, who was also president of said corporation, acting within the regular scope and authority of his employment as such agent, servant and employee and as president of said defendant, told plaintiff to go ahead and not worry about the two monthly payments of Twelve ($12.00) Dollars each, which were in arrears on his promissory note at that time, that he could catch up the two payments some time before the last payment was due and payable thereon." (Italics added.)
The foregoing quotation from the complaint states all of the facts which might be taken to show the contract upon which respondent seeks to recover.
It is unquestionably true that the respondent was legally obligated from the date of the execution and delivery of the note and assignment to pay the note according to its terms. The respondent only alleges that the appellant through its president told him not to worry, that he could catch up the payments then in arrears "some time before the last payment was due and payable." The respondent did not allege that he agreed to catch up the payments in arrears.
The complaint only alleges that respondent agreed to do something that he was legally bound to do. The proof offered by respondent only tends to show that the respondent agreed to do that which he was already legally bound to do. Is an agreement to do that which one is already legally bound to do sufficient consideration to support a new agreement?
The authorities from this and other jurisdictions are unanimous in holding that such an agreement is not sufficient to support a new contract. See 12 Am.Jur. No. 88 (and note 17) Page 582; 17 Corpus Juris Secundum, Contracts,§ 112, page 466; American Law Institute's Restatement of the Law, Contracts, Chapter 3, No. 76, pages 82-86.
In Blair v. Howard, 144 Fla. 421, 198 So. 80, 81, a case which involved the foreclosure of a real estate mortgage, the defendant pleaded an extension of the maturity date of...
To continue reading
Request your trial