Case ID: scl_43/html/0399-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "O’Neall, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Albright & Pinchback vs. The Town Council of Chester.
    A contract may be lawfully entered into betwe'en the Intendant of a Town, and the Town Council thereof.
    BEFORE GLOVER, -J., AT CHESTER,'SPRING TERM, 1856.
    During tbe year 1853, the plaintiffs, one of them, Pinchback, being at the time Intendant of Chester, entered into a contract with the Town Council of Chester, to keep the streets in repair until the 1st January, 1854, for the sum of eight hundred dollars. In January, 1854, Pinchback being still Intendant, the Council, by resolution, directed the clerk, to pay the plaintiffs. The clerk paid something over one hundred dollars, and this action was brought to recover the balance.
    The defendants moved for a nonsuit, on the ground that the contract was void. His Honor overruled the motion, and the plaintiffs had a verdict for the balance due them. .
    The defendants appealed, and now renewed their motion for a nonsuit.
   Curia, per

O’Neall, J.

I agree to the principle laid down by my late friend, Chancellor David Johnson, in the Railroad Company vs. Claghorn, et al., Speer’s Eq. 562; “ There is nothing in law or equity which forbids a member, or even a director of a corporation from contracting with it, and like any other individual, he has a right to prescribe his own term's, which the corporation are at liberty to accept or reject, and when the contract is concluded, he stands in the same relation to the other creditors of the corporation as any other individual would under the same circumstances.”

According to this principle, certainly the contract with the Intendant and a stranger is good.

The jury have decided that the work was done according to contract.

The motion is dismissed.

Wardlaw, Withers, Whither, Glover and Munro, JJ., concurred.

Motion dismissed.