Cases in Quasi Contract; Selected from Decisions of English and American Courts (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CASES IN THB LAW OF QUASI CONTRACT CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY-NATURE OF QUASI CONTRACT SECTION 1.?SOURCES AND SCOPE OF QUASI CONTRACT I. Noncontractual Obligation To Pay A Sum Of Money (A) Customary or Official Obligation l 7 VINER'S ABRIDGMENT, 343?DEBT (K) 9. If there be a custom that the collector of the rent of the Lord ought to pay 22s. to the Lord for the profits of the market of the Lord, the executor of the Lord may have debt for the 22s. without bringing a writ of account, for he is not a receiver of this but he ought to pay it whether he receives the profits or not. Y. B. 11 H. VI, 14 b (1432). i The cases In this collection deal only with the obligation to pay money. "Of a quasi contractual nature, It Is submitted, Is the duty of a carrier, founded upon the custom of the realm to receive and to carry safely. That the liability In such cases arises, not from contract but from a duty, Is clear. While It is true that the liability is ordinarily described as one In tort. It Is submitted that it has been so described because of the usual classification of legal rights into contracts and torts, and that since the obligation Imposed upon the carrier Is to act, the obligation Is really quasi contractual In Its nature, and not in the nature of a tort. If this be the proper classification of the duties imposed by law upon a carrier, It must necessarily be true of the common liability of an innkeeper to receive guests, or to keep their goods safely." Keener, Quasi Contracts 18. See Bank of Orange v. Brown (1829) 3 Wend. (N. Y..) 158. (In an action against a common carrier for a loss of property arising from a breach of duty Imposed by the custom of the realm "the plaintiff has his choice of remedies, either to bring assumpslt or case.") Morgan v. Rave...