Court Opinion

ID: 9443983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:36:54.105191+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:39.941865
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
In view of some question which has arisen as to the construction of this section of the Statute of Frauds in New York, perhaps some further clarification is desirable. Professor Corbin says: “In its actual application, however, the courts have been perhaps even less friendly to this provision than to the-other provisions of the statute. They have observed the exact words of this, provision and have interpreted them literally and very narrowly. * * * in general, the cases indicate that there must not be the slightest possibility that it can be fully performed within one year.” 2 Corbin on Contracts § 444 (1950). And New York, which had early adopted this view, has only just now reiterated it. “Subdivision 1 of section 31 of the Personal Property Law, Consol. Laws, c. 41, has been so construed as to apply only to agreements which by their terms do not admit of performance within one year from the time of their making- and if performance be possible within the year, however unlikely or improbable that, may be, the agreement does not come within the proscription of the statute.”' Nat Nal Service Stations v. Wolf, 304 N.Y. 332, 335, 107 N.E.2d 473, citing cases.
Nevertheless certain cases between those cited in the opinion herewith and this latest decision appeared to throw-some doubt on this law. See criticism-, in 2 Corbin on Contracts § 445, pages 27— 29 (1953 Supp.). In Droste v. Harry Atlas Sons, 2 Cir., 145 F.2d 899, rehearing denied, 2 Cir., 147 F.2d 675, certiorari dismissed 325 U.S. 891, 65 S.Ct. 1408, 89 L.Ed. 2003, acting under the-strict compulsion of the rule of absolute supremacy of state law in the federal courts, our court felt obliged to yield' obedience to what it thought was the New York trend; and that decision has led. to the result below and may perhaps induce other like errors. But the Droste case was repudiated in Newkirk v. C. C. Bradley & Son, 271 App.Div. 658, 67 N.Y.S.2d 459, and is at variance with. Nat Nal Service Stations v. Wolf, supra. Since New York has therefore returned to the normal interpretation of the law, I think both the ruling principle and the-resulting inapplicability of the statute-could properly be stated with somewhat, more emphasis.