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97 Miss. 790

Bell v. Oates

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided October 15, 1910

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1910-10-15

From the chancery court of Yazoo county. Hon. G. Garland Ltell, Chancellor. Oates, appellee, was complainant in the court below; Bell, administrator, appellant, was defendant there. From a decree in complainant’s favor defendant appealed to the supreme court.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Where a contract is shown, as in this case, by the terms of which the services to be rendered, and the compensation therefor, are fixed, and the claim is for additional compensation for services not contemplated by the contract,- loose declarations of the decedent to a third person, expressing a willingness to pay the claimant for services then being rendered by him, are insufficient to establish, either that such services were not contemplated by the contract, or an agreement to pay extra therefor. Appellee, under the contract, was bound to render the very services he is making claim for; and, had it been shown that decedent expressly agreed to pay therefor an amount additional to that provided in the contract, such agreement would not be binding on her estate, because without consideration.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Brickell v. Hendricks

Relies on Estate of Weaver

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1910-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 44 later decisions — most recently July 1987 · most notably Ellis v. Berry (1926), Tarver v. Lindsey (1931)

42 state decisions

8019101920193019401950196019701980decided

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 →

Anderson, T.,

¶1after stating the facts as above, delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2Claims of the character of the one here involved, brought up for the first time after the death of the decedent, are looked upon by the courts with disfavor; and in order to maintain such a claim the evidence must clearly establish a contract, express or implied, between the claimant and decedent, providing therefor. In re Weaver, 182 Pa. 349, 38 Atl. 12.

¶3Where a contract is shown, as in this case, by the terms of which the services to be rendered, and the compensation therefor, are fixed, and the claim is for additional compensation for services not contemplated by the contract, loose declarations of the decedent to a third person, expressing a willingness to pay the claimant for services then being rendered by him, are insufficient to establish, either that such services were not contemplated by the contract, or an agreement to pay extra therefoK^ Appellee, under the contract, was bound to render the very service he is making claim for; and, had it been shown that decedent expressly agreed to pay therefor an amount additional to that provided in the contract, such agreement would not be binding on her estate, because without consideration.)

¶4Reversed, and decree here for appellant.

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