Court Opinion

ID: 9507117
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 21:18:36.05274+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:14.899776
License: Public Domain

MR JUSTICE SHEA,
concurring.
I would affirm the judgment — there was a valid consideration for the second contract. What bothers me, however, is the fact that defendants asserted in District Court and before this Court that the second contract was not supported by a valid consideration. Defendants’ counsel was involved in the drafting, or at least in advising his clients concerning the execution of both the first and the second contract.
Did the defendants and their counsel believe even before the second contract was signed that it was not supported by a valid consideration and thus that plaintiffs in fact could not enforce the contract against the defendants? Or, did the defendants and their counsel, when faced with plaintiffs’ attempted enforcement of the second contract, suddenly arrive at the no consideration defense in a last ditch attempt to avoid enforcement?
We have a situation here where I assume counsel advised his clients to sign the second contract. The assumption would be, of course, that the defendants believed they were signing a legally enforceable contract. But when the plaintiffs sought enforcement against the defendants, an attempt is made to hide behind the defense of no consideration. This is a rather strange set of circumstances to be asserting that defense.