Court Opinion

ID: 3584877
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-05 23:35:11.218879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:43.874554
License: Public Domain

The Chief Judge finds in the expression "In loving memory this gift shall be known as the Mary Yates Johnston Memorial Fund" an offer on the part of Mary Yates Johnston to contract with Allegheny College. The expression makes no such appeal to me. Allegheny College was not requested to perform any act through which the sum offered might bear the title by which the offeror states that it shall be known. The sum offered was termed a "gift" by the offeror. Consequently, I can see no reason why we should strain ourselves to make it, not a gift, but a trade. *Page 380 
Moreover, since the donor specified that the gift was made "In consideration of my interest in Christian education, and in consideration of others subscribing," considerations not adequate in law, I can see no excuse for asserting that it was otherwise made in consideration of an act or promise on the part of the donee, constituting a sufficient quid quo pro to convert the gift into a contract obligation. To me the words used merely expressed an expectation or wish on the part of the donor and failed to exact the return of an adequate consideration. But if an offer indeed was present, then clearly it was an offer to enter into a unilateral contract. The offeror was to be bound provided the offeree performed such acts as might be necessary to make the gift offered become known under the proposed name. This is evidently the thought of the Chief Judge, for he says: "She imposed a condition that the `gift' should be known as the Mary Yates Johnston Memorial Fund." In other words, she proposed to exchange her offer of a donation in return for acts to be performed. Even so there was never any acceptance of the offer and, therefore, no contract, for the acts requested have never been performed. The gift has never been made known as demanded. Indeed, the requested acts, under the very terms of the assumed offer, could never have been performed at a time to convert the offer into a promise. This is so for the reason that the donation was not to take effect until after the death of the donor, and by her death her offer was withdrawn. (Williston on Contracts, sec. 62.) Clearly, although a promise of the college to make the gift known, as requested, may be implied, that promise was not the acceptance of an offer which gave rise to a contract. The donor stipulated for acts, not promises. "In order to make a bargain it is necessary that the acceptor shall give in return for the offer or the promise exactly the consideration which the offeror requests. If an act is requested, that very act and no other must be *Page 381 
given. If a promise is requested, that promise must be made absolutely and unqualifiedly." (Williston on Contracts, sec. 73.) "It does not follow that an offer becomes a promise because it is accepted; it may be, and frequently is, conditional, and then it does not become a promise until the conditions are satisfied; and in case of offers for a consideration, the performance of the consideration is always deemed a condition." (Langdell, Summary of the Law of Contracts, sec. 4.) It seems clear to me that there was here no offer, no acceptance of an offer, and no contract. Neither do I agree with the Chief Judge that this court "found consideration present where the general law of contract, at least as then declared, would have said that it was absent" in the cases of Barnes v. Perine (12 N.Y. 18), PresbyterianSociety v. Beach (74 N.Y. 72) and Keuka College v. Ray
(167 N.Y. 96). In the Keuka College case an offer to contract, in consideration of the performance of certain acts by the offeree, was converted into a promise by the actual performance of those acts. This form of contract has been known to the law from time immemorial (Langdell, sec. 46) and for at east a century longer than the other type, a bilateral contract. (Williston, sec. 13.) It may be that the basis of the decisions in Barnes v. Perine and Presbyterian Society v. Beach
(supra) was the same as in the Keuka College case. (SeePresbyterian Church of Albany v. Cooper, 112 N.Y. 517.) However, even if the basis of the decisions be a so-called "promisory estoppel," nevertheless they initiated no new doctrine. A so-called "promisory estoppel," although not so termed, was held sufficient by Lord MANSFIELD and his fellow judges as far back as the year 1765. (Pillans v. Van Mierop,
3 Burr. 1663.) Such a doctrine may be an anomaly; it is not a novelty. Therefore, I can see no ground for the suggestion that the ancient rule which makes consideration necessary to the formation of every contract is in danger of effacement through any decisions *Page 382 
of this court. To me that is a cause for gratulation rather than regret. However, the discussion may be beside the mark, for I do not understand that the holding about to be made in this case is other than a holding that consideration was given to convert the offer into a promise. With that result I cannot agree and, accordingly, must dissent.
POUND, CRANE, LEHMAN and O'BRIEN, JJ., concur with CARDOZO, Ch. J.; KELLOGG, J. dissents in opinion, in which ANDREWS, J., concurs.
Judgment accordingly.