Opinion ID: 852525
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Assignability in General

Text: Under early common law, hardly any chose in action was assignable. 3 Samuel Williston, A Treatise on the Law of Contracts § 405, at 7 (3d ed.1960). Both Lord Coke and Blackstone argued that assignment constituted champerty and maintenance, which were discouraged by the `wisdom and policy of the sages and founders of our law.' Id. (quoting Lampet's Case (Eng.) 10 Coke, 46a, 48a). See also Draper v. Zebec, 219 Ind. 362, 372, 37 N.E.2d 952, 956 (1941) (In Blackstone's time it was thought that many, for the furtherance of pretended rights, conveyed some interest therein to great men in order to gain their support and influence over the courts in the interests of their cause.). [7] Discounting the fear of maintenance, others argued that assignment was barred by the doctrine of privity. J.B. Ames, The Disseisin of Chattels: Inalienability of Choses in Action, 3 Harv. L.Rev. 337, 339 & n. 2 (1890) (noting that rule barring assignments predated laws against maintenance and was justified in other European countries on grounds that such personal rights were non-transferable). The intangible nature of a chose in action and the lack of commercial necessity are also credited as contributing to the non-assignment rule. 4 Arthur Corbin, Corbin on Contracts: A Comprehensive Treatise on the Rules of Contract Law § 856, at 403 (1963). Whatever the reason for this rule, a variety of forces combined over the centuries to work its slow reversal. The chose in action based on contract was the first to become assignable, primarily out of economic necessity. Next, with the de-emphasis of privity, the passage of English statutes, and the demise of laws against champerty, choses in action for torts against personal property slowly gained the power of assignment. The assignment of tort suits growing out of an injury to the person, however, or for wrongs done to the person, reputation, or feelings of the injured party, remained unassignable. The common law in most states today, including Indiana, teaches that any chose in action that survives the death of the assignor may be assigned. `[A]ny cause or right of action may be assigned that, in accordance with the rules relating to the survivability of causes of action . . . would, on the death of the assignor, survive to his legal representative.' Armstrong v. Ill. Bankers Life Ass'n, 217 Ind. 601, 619, 29 N.E.2d 415, 422 (1940) (quoting 6 C.J.S. Assignments § 30). An English statute on the survival of actions enacted in 1330 is responsible for this connection between survival and assignment. [8] As one might expect, this rule derived from an English statute enacted more than a century before the invention of movable type is not tightly enforced. It seems anachronistic today to resolve the issue of assignability of a chose in action by deciding whether such a claim would survive the client's death. Instead, as we said in Picadilly, Inc. v. Raikos, 582 N.E.2d 338, 341 (Ind.1991), Assignment should be permitted or prohibited based on the effect it will likely have on modern society, and the legal system in particular. This is a question properly within our purview as common law judges.