Notes - Lampleigh v. Brathwait

NOTE

Consult Kennedy v. Broun (1863) 13 C.B. (n.s.) 677, 740; 143 Eng. Rep. 268; A. Corbin, Cases on Contracts 326 (3d ed. 1947); Fifoot at 405; Notes, 16 Minn. L. Rev. 808 (1932), 7 U. Chi. L. Rev. 124 (1939); Corbin, Recent Developments in Contracts, 50 Harv. L. Rev. 449, 454 (1937).

The previous request rationale was ingeniously used in the following fact situation: A business house in urgent need of funds drew a time bill of exchange on defendant, another business house. Defendant held no funds of the drawer; indeed, the first house was rather deeply indebted to the second. The bill was discounted to plaintiff the day it was drawn. Having made a loan to the first business house, plaintiff then procured the defendant's acceptance of the bill, which made the defendant the principal obligor on the bill. Although the court had little trouble finding consideration for defendant's assumption of liability in plaintiff's forbearance to sue, it added: "When a man borrows money and draws on his friend, who accepts, it should be intended that the acceptor authorized him originally to borrow on the terms that he would accept, which is equivalent to a request of the loan on the part of the acceptor." Commercial Bank of Lake Erie v. Norton & Fox, 1 Hill 501 (N.Y. 1841).