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56 Me. 100

Tillock v. Webb

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine

Decided July 1, 1868

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine · decided 1868-07-01

On Exceptions to the ruling of Goddard, J., in the Superior Court. Assumpsit On a note for $48, given by the defendant to the plaintiff, dated April' 13, 1867. Plea, general issue., ■with brief statement denying any consideration, and also alleging that the consideration was an unlawful one. The case was tried by the Judge (without the intervention of a jury) whose decision was subject to exceptions in matters of law.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1868-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently September 1980

3 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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Appleton, C.

¶1The defendant hired of the plaintiff and his partner a horse and wagon to ride on Sunday. The hiring was not for any purpose of necessity or charity. Being illegal between the parties, it is not made legal because the hirer did a kind act by conveying a young lady home, who had been "to meeting” during the day. The contract, so far as disclosed, was indefinite as to time, distance and use, and not being for any purpose of necessity or charity, was one which the law will not enforce, nor will it give compensation for its violation. Way v. Foster, 1 Allen, 408; Morton v. Gloster, 46 Maine, 520.

¶2If the defendant injured the horse and wagon by his careless or negligent driving, the remedy for the bailors would be against him for breach of his duty as bailee, — that is, for a breach of the duties arising from and under the contract of bailment. But, as that contract was against the provisions of the statute, no action could have been maintained upon it.

¶3The only consideration for the note is the liability of the defendant under a contract prohibited by law. But this cannot bo regarded as a legal consideration. The rights of the parties remain as if no note had been given. The original contract being void was not susceptible of ratification. Day v. McAllister, 15 Gray, 433.

¶4In Morton v. Gloster, 46 Maine, 520, and in Woodman v. Hubbard, 5 Foster, 520, the bailee was guilty of a conversion of the property bailed, and was held liable therefor in trover. Not so here. The defendant is not proved to have kept the horse and wagon longer or to have driven *102further than he agreed to. He is not shown to have been guilty of any act of conversion. Exceptions sustained.

Kent, Walton, Dickerson aud Daneorth, JJ., concurred.
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