4 U.S. 95 - Little v. Dawson — 4 U.S. 95

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 1927

2 state decisions

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.

¶1Assumpsit.

¶2If services are rendered, merely in expectation of a legacy, without any contract, express or implied, an action cannot be maintained for them.3

¶3Case, for services rendered by Jane Bittle, the plaintiff, to Aquila Jones the testator.

¶5The Court,

¶6in the charge to the jury, stated, that it was in full proof, that the plaintiff had served the testator, with great diligence, for a period exceeding eleven years, on which two questions arose : 1st. Was she entitled to any compensation ? 2d. Had she received a compensation ? As to the first, it was ruled, that if the services were rendered merely in expectation of a legacy, without any contract, express or implied, but relying, implicitly, on the testator’s generosity, the action could not be maintained. The weight of the evidence, however, is, that he promised to take care of her, though he did not say how ; that at one time he offered to marry her ; *96and, at another time, he said that he would provide for her as a child. (a) As to the second question, it is merely a matter of fact, on which the jury must decide.

¶7For the plaintiff, Rawle.

¶8For the defendant, Sergeant and Roberts,

¶9who cited 1 Vern. 98; 2 Atk. 251, 409; 2 Str. 728; 1 Dall. 265; 1 Burr. 157; Pract. Reg. 357; 3 Rep. Chan. 64; 2 Str. 910.

¶10Verdict for the plaintiff.

(a)

¶11If one (no matter with what expectations) does services for another, at his request, assumpsit will lie to recover a compensation for them. Roberts ®. Swift, 1 Yeates 209. Although a person serves another from expectation of a legacy, in which he is disappointed, yet if the person for whom the service was done, promises to pay for it, an action can be maintained for the value of such service; whether the promise be made before or after the service was performed. Snyder v. Castor, 4 Yeates 358. Where a solicitor, in expectation of a bounty by will, did not call for payment of a debt, ho was not allowed to set it up afterwards, having been disappointed in that expectation. Alsager v. Rowley (cited by Sir S. Rojiilly, in the case of Platamore v. Staple, Cooper’s Ch. Cas. 252, and reported on another point in 6 Ves. 748).