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29 Mo. 322

Brown v. Rice

Supreme Court of Missouri

Decided January 15, 1860

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1860-01-15

This was an action originally commenced before a justice of the peace upon the following accountSamuel 0. Rice, to Richard J. Brown, Dr. To amount which the said Rice, in January, 1859, promised to pay upon the said Brown’s leaving the Barton farm, $23.” At the trial in the circuit court the defendant asked the court to instruct as follows: “3.

Cited by 1 later decisions — most recently March 1896

1 state decisions

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1860-01-15

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NaptoN, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The third instruction asked by the defendant in this case, or something equivalent thereto, should, we think, have beeii] given to the jury. There was certainly evidence from which a jury might have come to the conclusion that Rice’s offer to give him his note for twenty-three dollars, if Brown would leave the Barton farm on a day named, was a mere promise, not a contract. To convert a promise into a contract, there must be the assent of the promisee, and until that is given the promiser may retract. The evidence was that Brown did not accede to the defendant’s proposition, but asked for time to consider it. Whether time was given, and within the period designated the plaintiff closed the contract, was a matter for the jury. If Brown was not bounpl, neither was Rice. But this view of the case was not left' to the jury.

¶3Judgment reversed and case remanded;

the other judges concur.
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