Case ID: njl_59/html/0069-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Garrison, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

HENRY C. SNYDER v. THE MERCHANTS’ INSURANCE COMPANY OF NEWARK.
    A count in a declaration set forth that the defendant promised to pay and the plaintiff agreed to accept a sum of money in consideration of a settlement of a claim that plaintiff had against defendant. Meld, on demurrer, that no cause of action was stated.
    
      On demurrer to declaration.
    ■ Argued at February Term, 1896, before Beasley, Chief' Justice, and Justices Dixon, Magie and Garrison.
    For the demurrant, Edward M. Colie.
    
    For the plaintiff, Irwin W. Schultz.
    
   The opinion of the court was delivered by

Garrison, J.

This is a demurrer to the first count in the-plaintiff’s declaration.

This count, stripped of merely formal words, is: That the-defendant “ promised forthwith and without notice or demand, to pay, and the said plaintiff, at the special instance and request of the defendant, agreed to accept a sum of money, to-wit, the sum of four hundred and eighty dollars, in consideration of a settlement of a claim that said plaintiff had against said defendant.”

The count then sets forth that the defendant, by reason of the aforesaid promise, became liable to pay the said sum without notice or demand; that the defendant has not paid the-said sum, and that an action thereby hath accrued.

The count is bad. The promise of the defendant is without consideration. The settlement ” said to be the consideration does not extinguish a prior cause of action, if any such existed; it deprives the promisee of nothing and is of no avail to the promisor. Even such promise as there was is-not the basis of the plaintiff’s suit, for his agreement was to accept a sum of money, not a promise to pay such sum.

Declarations defective in like respects are illustrated in the cases of Conover v. Stillwell, 5 Vroom 54; Union Locomotive and Express Co. v. Erie Railway Co., 8 Id. 23; Farmers’ Bank v. Blair, 44 Barb. 641; Cabot v. Haskins, 3 Pick. 83; American notes to 3 White & Tudor’s Lead. Cas. Eq. (5th Am. ed.) 406, case Stapleton v. Stapleton.

In the. case in hand a notice annexed to the narr. restates the action as being based upon a settlement of a loss on a fire policy. This cannot' be noticed upon demurrer. Harrison v. Vreeland, 9 Vroom 366.

It serves, however, as a concrete illustration of the inadequacy of this style of pleading.

The demurrer is sustained, with costs.