Question

Please research, Hamer v. Sidway.

After finding and reading the case, please do the following:

1) Give me the legal citation for this case (Hamer v. Sidway).

2) Give me the Issue, Rule, the judge's Analysis, and the judge's Conclusion for Hamer v. Sidway. (In other words: a) What is the main Issue in Hamer v. Sidway; b) What is the main Rule the judge applied to the issue in Hamer v. Sidway; c) What is the judges reasoning (analysis) in using the Rule to arrive at their Conclusion; d) What is the conclusion in this case?

Answer 1

1.)  legal citation for Hamer vs Sidway case - 124 N.Y. 538, 27 N.E. 256

2.) (a) Issue involved - Whether adequate consideration sufficient to form a valid and enforceable contract requires the promisor to actually receive a benefit and the promisee to incur a detriment.

(b) Judge applied the Exchequer Chamber's 1875 definition of consideration: "A valuable consideration in the sense of the law may consist either in some right, interest, profit or benefit accruing to the one party, or some forbearance, detriment, loss or responsibility given, suffered or undertaken by the other.

(c)  Story incurred a limitation on his legal right to engage in certain activities sufficient to constitute adequate consideration to form a valid and enforceable contract with his uncle. Adequate consideration sufficient to form a valid and enforceable contract may consist of either a right, interest, profit, or benefit accrued to one party, or some forbearance, detriment, loss, or responsibility given, suffered, or undertaken by the other. It does not matter whether one party actually received a benefit or whether the thing which forms the consideration is of any substantial value to either party. Adequate consideration does not depend so much on a promisor’s benefit from a contract as it does on the promisee’s voluntary limitation of his legal rights or freedoms in exchange for the promise.

(d) Conclusion - Respondent's forbearance of legal rights on the promises of future benefit made by Petitioner could constitute valid consideration and therefore, Sidway, was therefore legally bound to deliver the promised $5,000 to whoever currently held the interest in the sum, which by the time of the trial was Hamer.