Opinion ID: 2007100
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Completed Performance and Past Consideration

Text: Sawyer claims the agreement is nonetheless enforceable because she completed her performance, taking the agreement outside the operation of the Statute of Frauds, as a completed executory contract. However, because Sawyer concedes she had completed her performance prior to the June 25, 2001 oral agreement, it was supported only by past performance, which is no consideration at all, and thus, under this argument, there was not a binding contract. Sawyer cites Pitcher v. Stadler, 276 Ky. 450, 124 S.W.2d 475, 479 (1939), for the proposition that completed performance by one party removes an agreement from the Statute of Frauds: [A] contract is no longer executory, and [the Statute of Frauds] has no application thereto, where it has been fully performed upon one side and the other party by its terms has a longer time than one year in which to perform his part thereof. The Court of Appeals correctly noted, however, that Sawyer did not perform any obligations pursuant to this agreement. [I]t is a general rule that past consideration is insufficient to support a promise. 17A Am.Jur.2d Contracts § 152 (2009). Simply put, Sawyer's claim that her completed performance takes her agreement outside of the operation of the Statute of Frauds fails, because the fact that her performance was done prior to the offer Mills made on June 25 means there was no consideration for the promise Mills made on that date. In Greenup v. Wilhoite, 212 Ky. 465, 279 S.W. 665, 666 (1926), the Court described a similar situation and the applicable law as follows: Appellants insist that the services for which appellee claims compensation had all been performed before the making of the contract sued on, and the consideration for the contract having all passed, the contract has failed for want of a supporting consideration. They insist that a past consideration which is some act of forbearance in time past by which a man has benefited, without thereby incurring any liability, is not sufficient to support an executory contract, and this is ordinarily true. Id. In that case, however, the agreement was upheld because part of the considerationin the form of serviceswas not yet given at the time the parties entered into the agreement, which further underscores that the agreement and consideration must be dependent on each other. Id. (Manifestly the parties to the contract contemplated that the appellee Mrs. Wilhoite was to receive compensation, not only for services which she had performed up to the time of the making of the contract, but for all services which she was to perform for Miller Wilhoite, Sr., during the remainder of his life.). Though Sawyer also contends that she continued to work for Mills after the agreement regarding her prior performance was made on June 25, she did in fact receive other multiple substantial payments from Mills after the agreement for that work. It therefore cannot also be used as the consideration going forward from the June 25th agreement. Sawyer also relies upon Fisher v. Long, 294 Ky. 751, 172 S.W.2d 545 (1943), for the proposition that a contract that is unenforceable because a term is not yet decided becomes enforceable if an agreement on the term is ever reached, that is, once the blank is filled in by the parties. Fisher , however, is distinguishable because the parties in that case had already reached a written agreement with valid consideration and mutual obligations, and all that remained was to make a simple mathematical calculation. Id. at 547 (Here there was a meeting of the minds ... This was the essential agreement.... It took no expert accountant to `adjust this difference in cash.'). Fisher is simply inapposite. Finally, Sawyer objects to Mills's attempt to obfuscate this issue with circular logic, arguing that if Sawyer had completed her performance at the time the bonus amount was filled in (as she concedes), there was no consideration and the contract was unenforceable, but if she had not completed performance at the time the bonus was filled in, the contract had to be in writing to be enforceable. This is not obfuscation. That Sawyer loses for two independent reasons does not undermine the logic, or make it circular. Consequently, the JNOV granted by the circuit court was appropriate.