eBook details
- Title: Davis S. M. Co. of Watertown, N. Y. v. Richards and Another
- Author : United States Supreme Court
- Release Date : January 07, 1885
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 69 KB
Description
Jas. G. Payne, for plaintiff in error, Davis S. M. Co. of Watertown, N. Y. C. C. Cole and Wm. A. Cook, for defendants in error, Almarin C. Richards and another, Ex'rs, etc., and another. The decision of this case depends upon the application of the rules of law stated in the opinion in the recent case of Davis v. Wells, 104 U. S. 159, in which the earlier decisions of this court upon the subject are reviewed. Those rules may be summed up as follows: A contract of guaranty, like every other contract, can only be made by the mutual assent of the parties. If the guaranty is signed by the guarantor at the request of the other party, or if the latter's agreement to accept is contemporaneous with the guaranty, or if the receipt from him of a valuable consideration, however small, is acknowledged in the guaranty, the mutual assent is proved, and the delivery of the guaranty to him or for his use completes the contract. But if the guaranty is signed by the guarantor without any previous request of the other party, and in his absence, for no consideration moving between them except future advances to be made to the principal debtor, the guaranty is in legal effect an offer or proposal on the part of the guarantor, needing an acceptance by the other party to complete the contract.