Part Payment of a Debt as Consideration for a Promise

Abstract

A new assault has lately been made upon the established doctrine that a part payment of a debt already due is not a sufficient consideration for a promise by the creditor to forego his right to the residue. As is well known, the rule is based upon what is probably a misinterpretation of a dictum in Pinnel's Case, 5 Coke, 117, as followed in Foakes v. Beer, 9 App. Cas. 605. See 12 Harv. Law Rev. 521. The supreme court of New Hampshire nowholds in Frye v. Hubbell, 68 Atl. 325, that such a part payment is a sufficient consideration. That there is a considerable tendency in America toward this result is evidenced by the fact that the former rule has been changed by statute in some ten States and by court decision on common-law grounds in two States besides New Hampshire. Clayton v. Clark, 74 Miss. 499; Dreyfus v. Roberts, 75 Ark. 354.