The court says the contract is void because it's against public policy: just like contracts for murder or to sell marijuana. It's not an illegal contract (i.e., the acts involved are not illegal), but it's not something the court wants to get into. Bascially, if this were enforced by the court, they'd have to look into whether she fully performed. Contracts almost always are conditional. And we, as the court, don't want to go swimming in the dismal swamp: how good is "good" as a homemaker.
The court also suggests that noninterference would be good for the parties and for married couples in general: running a marriage by litigation is not a good idea. Maybe, in fact, lack of specific contractual language can be a positive, in some instances. For example, it puts off contentious issues until they actually come to pass. Also, with some people, if duties are vague, they'll overperform.
There's this idea of fraud on creditors as well: parking money in her account might be a trick to shield it from creditors. That issue is mostly obsolete at this point.
The court also alludes to the notion that there's no consideration, but declines to really rule on the issue. Note that in 2007, it's almost impossible to imagine a commercial consideration case (nb: consideration is alive and well in other areas). The pre-existing legal obligation rule: a promise by the fire department to put out your house fire if you pay them an extra $1,000 lacks consideration. It's a service already paid for. Posner (Selmer) says the pre-existing legal obligation rule and the no-consideration-doctrine are the same. We shall see.
Anyway, in a spouse case, is there a pre-existing legal obligation? I.e., a wife's promise to fulfill the duties of a wife lacks consideration: she's got to do that anyhow. But we can at least argue about what the duties of a wife might be. Interesting: there are duties, but we're not sure exactly what these are. So the court's refusal to rule on no-consideration is basically an unwillingness to specify these duties. Note that in the contract, the lawyer tried hard to enumerate some duties on each side.
But, of course, if the law doesn't intervene, we're left with the configuration of power that we started with.
Problems?
Prenuptial agreements can have some of the same issues. Is it duress to require them? One can always say no, but that means calling off the wedding. How much arm-twisting is too much?
Meretricious: of/pertaining to/being a prostitute. The state of California will not enforce such a contract. So step one is to distinguish the situation from that in order to protect the reputation of the court and to support the criminal law. That's one end of the spectrum.
All the same, the fact that we've got males and females doesn't mean there can be no contract. Suppose we've got two entertainers, and they agree to support one another when one's career is stalled. An income-sharing contract would be fine in that case (and in fact a normal state of affairs).
But now suppose they do have sex from time to time. Where does this put the relationship? As long as the contract/relationship isn't expressly and mainly based on sexual services, the court says this is OK. But how many encounters would it take to cross that threshold?
But now suppose that he sets her up as his mistress, and provides for her, and gets sex. That would be impermissable, apparently. And what, then, if she also does computer consulting for him? Who knows.
Anyway, we could enforce any severable portion of the contract supported by an independant consideration, says the court. So are we dealing with lump sums, or are the economics of the relationship allocated to specific purposes?
The judge is having trouble, in other words, distinguishing long-term prostitution from an enforceable agreement. And that's what he wants to accomplish. So let's suppose there's no express promise. Can an implied promise work? It would seem so. Is living together enough to create an implied promise?
Some jurisdictions say they'll enforce Marvin-style agreements, but only if they are in writing. So how would a promise, in these circumstances, be implied? What performance is said to have been promised?
Note that the consideration for these promises cannot be meretricious services.
If you're receiving services, there's an implied expectation to pay for their reasonable value (offset by any benefits). But sex cannot be the services.
Once we take law out of economic spheres, and start to put it into personal relationships, it doesn't fit so well.
So here, what we're looking for, is an implied promise to split assets. So she wants to assert that she deserves compensation for her non-meretricious services, the same as a wife would do.
Common-law marriage. Often, the lower classes wouldn't get officially married. A marriage would be formed just be acting married, and this could be recognized. Basically, this was for people who couldn't afford the investment of a marriage. Along with womens' suffrage, there was prohibition, anti-slavery, and the undoing of common-law marriage. This was part of Americanization of immigrant populations, incidentally: we'll make people get married the way Americans do.
The judge distinguishes this situation from common-law marriage by saying that there's an agreement here, whereas there was not in that case.
So why should the courts intervene? We actually get a citation from Future Shock; essentially, times change, and the law needs to catch up with what people are doing.
We don't need to worry about third-party interests here (Betty Marvin's rights are protected already), and Michelle can only go after unprotected assets (i.e., since the disollution of the marriage).
Doctrinally, this is much different from Balfour and Miller, but the same issue underlies it: how do we know that Michelle performed her part of the implied contract? This 12-week trial, by the way, was a wonderful parade of celebrities-- you were really someone if you got called as a witness.
The rehabilitation award is to "prevent her from becoming a public charge," now that she's an aged woman of 37. It's based on her top two years of earnings as a singer.
The 3-judge intermediate appellate court reverses 2-1 (the 1 being the female judge). The transition payment is reversed, so Michelle gets nothing.
Ironically, the lawyer gets rich and famous. He has the guts (or idiocy) to take the case, and he literally invents palimony (pal + alimony). See also "covenant marriages" (a rarely used alternative to no-fault, in three states).
On the surface, this looks like a more appealing case than Marvin.
This is Jenner & Block, btw. Big Chicago law firm representing the husband.
It's the Hart & Sachs (?) of its day: a function of for the legislature, a function for the courts, etc. (What is the natural function of a king?) The court says this is for the legislature to decide, even though the plaintiff's claims have some merit. This line of reasoning tends to apply to decisions we wouldn't like. :)
Note that the legislature cannot grant relief retroactively. Also, does the lobby of formerly-cohabitatitating-women-who-got-ditched have a lot of power? Statute of limitations prevents her from suing over his misrepresentations. Conflicts of Laws an important course: IA, at the time when she got pregnant, still recognized common-law marriage. Could that help?
Sometimes beinging a lawsuit is a forum to allow other-than-legal sanctions to work (i.e., negative publicity). Possibly that's what happened here.
Unilateral contract: very rare.
Sidway is a banker, and an executor of the state. He represents the other heirs.
Basic ingredients for will: must be in writing, must be declared to be a will, and must have two witnesses to the signing.
There are trusts, also, and gifts. A gift = intent + delivery (of item or token).
Promises to make gifts are revocable. Death revokes promises, but not contracts. Not only that, but a promise to make a gift is not legally enforceable (i.e., you could always just revoke). If I don't give you something, there's no gift. "Delivery" of a gift is a "form." There's caution: it demonstrates that the gift is made, just like doing the will "form" constitutes a legally enforceable will. This is a legal channel: if you want to make a gift, here's how you do it. Seems like a really simple idea, but it's really important.
"When I die I want you to have this" is not legally enforceable. It might work in practice, but not in court.
Form has a cost, though: if you don't follow it, the thing is legally invalid. Plus, this makes the law look funny at times (i.e., ridiculously governed by technicality). So to combat ridiculosity, in areas highly governed by forms, we have counter-rules to many rules: ways to get the right thing done even when a form isn't done exactly right.
So back to the question of "for his own good" here. Note that if the things the nephew were giving up were illegal, the contract would be invalid.
Now consider the interaction with Mr. Fisk, during the cholera outbreak: "if you leave, there probably won't be a job here for you when you come back." This does not appear to be a promise (i.e., not a contract). He doesn't say good things will happen if you stay, but rather that bad things will happen if you go. You're allowed to make statements of intent and opinion which are not promises.
So the uncle, who knows how to make a trust, just makes a statement about his intent.
Interesting family situation: a pair of sisters marries a pair of brothers. Antillico & Henry have 5 kids; Isaac & Mary have 6 (he later has some more with another wife).
Also, 70 miles in those days was pretty darn far.
So, why was Kirksey making this offer? The answer isn't crystal clear: some judges think it's a bargain, others do not.
We could make up circumstances where Kirksey gets something out of the deal (i.e., quid pro quo), and then it would be a contract for sure. But this is more like a conditional gift: if you come down here, I'll let you stay in a nice place.
Later research indicates that Isaac was using a put-it-in-my-sister-in- law's-name gambit to get more land than the government was allowing to homesteaders. If she's there, holding and farming the land (with her slaves), he can get the "preference" on it in his son's name (son was too young at first). That's why he moved the son in. Obviously, that can't be disclosed in court, because it's a shady deal.
This was the first case that Macaulay was called on in law school; that's one possible reason it stayed in our book.
Equitable estoppel: you can be barred from telling the truth. Basically, if a fact is mis-stated, and relied upon, it becomes the truth for the sake of this deal. Applies only to misleading statements of fact. For example, if I lie to you about a deadline, I can't use the true deadline to reap rewards in court.
Promissory estoppel: a new tool for enforcing a promise when it would be unfair to assert that there was no consideration, because the promisee has relied upon.
So our plaintiff has relied on the promise of the income. There are not many promissory estoppel cases.
Then all of a sudden Americans caught onto the idea of shaping up the common law. In a typically strange mix of public and private, the ALI gets formed: Learned Hand, Cardozo, etc., are the members. The Restatement isn't supposed to be a book about what the law should be-- it's supposed to be about what the law is. But in those days, they thought it was what it should be: we were discovering the law.
Anyway, §90 is supposed to handle promises that don't fit the standard consideration doctrine. If injustice would occur by failing to enforce a promise, even if the contrct isn't technically valid, enforce it.
So is this injustice? Who would have gotten the money if this promise were not enforced? Is it right to keep it from them by enforcing the promise?
She's trying to get us to use the power of the state to enforce this promise. The money would either go to her or to some identified others. She only has a right to the money if injustice can be avoided only by enforcing the contract. But putting the money in one bucket means it doesn't go into another. How do we know what justice requires? Is it the best use that the family could make of it? Does it matter if other relations are wealthy or poor, for example?
Someday we may have to argue these things.
The Spike Lee principle of jurisprudence: do the right thing. The courts seem to emphasize rules. Except when they don't work well.
The Restatement (Second) says we don't have to enforce the whole expectation interest-- we can use the concept of reliance (Lon Fuller) to limit the remedy.
Note that this is a sort of second-class rule: you really ought to have contract rules in place, but every once in a while there can be enforcement even when they're not. So, if you can win a case pureley on a strict contract argument, go for it.
Splashover: the idea that there's one body of law called contracts that covers all human interaction is pretty crazy in some respects. Insurance contracts are different from family baiting or big government contracts or wills, etc.
It's not as though this case is the key to the whole world, but there are not many like it. A huge number of issues never get lawyers involved. Most of those that do get settled. Many of those that do not settle get summary judgment. Those that go to trial mostly get settled there. Of those, only a few are worth appealing. So somehow Restatement §90 makes it into commercial doctrine, in spite of the fact that it begins with the puny little Ricketts v. Scothorn case. That's splashover: a small matter has dramatic impact on another area.