Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

1 Dall. 175

Lee v. Biddis

Supreme Court of the United States

Decided September 15, 1786

Supreme Court of the United States · decided 1786-09-15

ON the trial of this cause, offered evidence to prove what was the money meant to be paid by the contract entered into between the Plaintiff and Defendant, under the words current lawful money; and cited Morris v. Wharton.* objected to the evidence, and cited 1 Atk. 447. 2 State Laws 494. Dav. Rep. 48. 72.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1786-09-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 27 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2022 · most notably Dvorkin v. Township of Dover (1959), Renner Bussard v. Marshall (1816)

21 state decisions

501786179018001810182018301840185018601870188018901900191019201930194019501960197019801990200020102020decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

By the Court.

¶1Current lawful money, by the positive words of the Act of Assembly, means such money as is current at the time of entering into the contract; and, perhaps, the evidence offered, would not so much contradict the contract itself, as that Act of Assembly: it would be to substantiate an agreement in direct opposition to the law. The case in Davis, if we could be bound by it at all (which we do not think we can, first, because it is not a judicial determination; and, secondly, because it is before Judges in Ireland) would be in favor of the Plaintiff, if it had not been for this Act of Assembly. But, indeed, if this evidence were admitted, it would open a door to such a scene of litigation, that, independent of the Act, the argument ab inconvenienti never applied in greater force.

¶2The evidence was accordingly over-ruled, and the Plaintiff voluntarily suffered a Nonsuit.

/1/dall/175 · .json · Public domain