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25 Ill. 292

Pryor v. Cain

Illinois Supreme Court

Decided January 15, 1861

Illinois Supreme Court · decided 1861-01-15

This suit was brought on an account for money paid for the use of defendant — money due on note, and money due on subscription for building a church — before a justice of the peace, and taken by appeal to the Circuit Court of Adams county. The jury found for the plaintiffs the amount of the note only. Motion by plaintiffs for a new trial; motion overruled, and judgment entered for plaintiffs for thirty-one, fifty-hundredths dollars, amount of said note only.

Relies on Homes v. Dana

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1861-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently May 2022

1 federal appellate · 7 state decisions

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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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Breese, J.

¶1There can be no doubt in this case as to the law.

¶2It is well settled that when a person subscribes, with others, a sum of money to carry on some common project, lawful in itself, and supposed to be beneficial to the projectors, and money is advanced on the faith of the subscription, an action for money paid, laid out and expended, may be maintained to recover the amount of the subscription, or such portion of it as will be equal to the subscriber’s portion of the expense incurred. Holmes v. Dana, 12 Mass. 190; Farmington Academy v. Allen, 14 ib. 172; Bryant v. Goodenow, 5 Pickering, 228; Robertson v. March, 3 Scam. 198.

¶3Numerous other cases to the point might be cited. They all proceed upon the principle that a person making a promise upon the strength of which other persons advance money, or furnish labor or materials, is bound in good faith to fulfill the obligation, the party paying the money or furnishing the labor and materials having a right to rely on such subscription.

¶4The court trying this case should have received the evidence relating to the subscription, and also the defendant’s admissions, and should have given the instruction asked by the plaintiff. Because the evidence was rejected and the instruction refused, the judgment of the court below is reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings, in conformity to this opinion.

¶5Judgment reversed.

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