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67 N.H. 383

29 A 846

Dow v. Harkin

Supreme Court of New Hampshire

Decided December 5, 1892

Supreme Court of New Hampshire · decided 1892-12-05

Bill in Equity, to annul an assignment of certain letters patent and chattels, for breach of its covenants and conditions. The defendant demurred.

Relies on Burbank v. Pillsbury · Luey v. Bundy · Appleton v. Phenix Mutual Life Insurance

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1892-12-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently June 1947

1 federal appellate · 3 state decisions

30189219001910192019301940decided

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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Chase, J.

¶1 The defendant, by accepting the assignment, became bound to perforin the agreement set forth in it to be performed by him, although he did not sign the instrument. Burbank v. Pills bury, 48 N. H. 475; Harriman v. Park, 55 N. H. 471; Winnipesaukee Camp Meeting Association v. Gordon, 63 N. H. 505, 506. His executory agreement was the sole consideration for the conveyance to him of the patent right, dies, and tools. ' By repeatedly' declining to perform it he has rescinded the contract, so far as his acts could accomplish that result; he has at least given the plaintiff an option to consummate a rescission by an acceptance of the offer of rescission necessarily included in his declination. The plaintiff, by bringing this- suit, has manifested his assent to the proffered rescission. No prior notice was necessary under the circumstances. The plaintiff’s repeated demands upon the defendant for the performance of his agreement were sufficient notice -that the plaintiff did not intend to waive his rights. As the plaintiff received nothing from the defendant, he had nothing to return before exercising the right of rescission. Upon the defendant’s reconveyance of the property received, the parties-will be in their former positions. Danforth v. Dewey, 3 N. H. 79; Fuller v. Little, 7 N. H. 535; Luey v. Bundy, 9 N. H. 298; Snow v. Prescott, 12 N. H. 535; Abbot v. Johnson, 32 N. H. 9, 20; Drew v. Claggett, 39 N. H. 431; Smith v. Hatch, 46 N. H. 146; Chamberlin v. Perkins, 55 N. H. 237; Appleton v. Insurance Com pany, 59 N. H. 541, 546; Poster v. Bartlett, 62 N. H. 617. If the property in the defendant’s possession by virtue of the assignment were all chattels like the dies and tools, an action at law for its recovery might be an adequate remedy; but it is not. A substantial portion of it is a patent right, — an intangible, incorporeal thing, which cannot be specifically recovered in an action at law. As the plaintiff has not an adequate remedy at law, he is entitled to a remedy in equity.

¶2 Exception sustained: demurrer overruled.

Clark, J., did not sit: the others concurred.
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