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23 Wend. 82

Eddy v. Graves

New York Supreme Court

Decided January 15, 1840

New York Supreme Court · decided 1840-01-15

This was an action of debt to recover a sum of money fixed upon as liquidated damages, in an agreement under seal.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1840-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently January 1895

7 state decisions

30184018501860187018801890decided

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.

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Cowen, J.

¶1By the Court, We are quite clear that neither of the exceptions is well taken. The plaintiff retained the privilege of sale generally ; and unless he fraudulently sold the goods in such a way as to injure the defendant, the latter must pay for the balance remaining on hand the 10th of September, not exceeding nine hundred dollars. No fraud was pretended or offered to be shown.

¶2The second exception cannot avail for the reasons assigned at the circuit by the plaintiff’s counsel, apd adopted by the judge, viz: 1. Because there was no consideration for the agreement to postpone; and 2. Because a contract by specialty cannot be varied by parol agreement, though it be made on valuable consideration. I had occasion to consider the authorities relating to the latter position in Allen v. Jaquish, 21 Wendell, 628, and shall not go over them now. We wish to be understood as adopting the rule that a subsequent executory contract, in order to operate as a defeasance or modification of a previous contract by specialty, though that be executory, must itself be under seal, whether it have a consideration or not, and whether it be made before or after a breach of the previous contract or not.

¶3New trial denied.

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