New! H2O now has access to new and up-to-date cases via CourtListener and the Caselaw Access Project. Click here for more info.

Main Content

Contracts: Cases and Materials

W. H. Page, The Law of Contracts §646 (1920)

1 W. H. PAGE, THE LAW OF CONTRACTS §646 (1920): "The doctrine of nominal consideration should have no place in our law. If we are to insist upon a consideration to support an executory promise, it must at least be a genuine and substantial consideration. If we are ready to dispense with the necessity of consideration, a higher morality than that at present demanded by our law might require the performance of every promise which is made fairly and deliberately, and upon the performance of which the promisee has relied in good faith. To permit the nominal consideration, especially in jurisdictions where the recital of consideration is conclusive, is to reduce the doctrine of consideration to a requirement of form, and not of substance; a form as empty as the seal, but lacking its historic dignity, and yet to demand that form before the law will compel the performance of the most deliberate promise."