Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/444

424 424 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. of consequential losses that the rule of Hadley v. Baxendale is law. But is not the damage in the case in hand direct? The direct loss, as in all cases of breach of contract, is the value of the contract. The telegraph company has failed to deliver the information given to it; the value of the contract lost is, then, the value of the information transmitted. In an analogous case a common carrier without notice is held for the value of a package negligently lost. So in the principal case the court correctly assumes that the measure of damages is the difference between the sum attached for and the debt. A solution of all difficulties, then, would seem to be to recognize that the loss of the intelligence is a direct loss, and that the standard of damages is the inherent value of that information. Consideration Valueless in Part. — Where some of the stipula- tions of an agreement are open to exception in point of legal validity, it is always a difficult problem to determine whether the other provisions are enforceable. The question arose recently in an attempt by a landlord to compel the lessee to perform his agreement under an oral contract for the lease of certain saloon buildings. The lease contained a collateral stipulation that the landlord should refrain from selling cigars upon his adjoining premises. By the local statute of frauds the lease itself was valid, but the collateral provision was unenforceable. Upon these facts the court held the whole contract bad for failure of consideration. Higgins v. Gager, 47 S. W. Rep. 848 (Ark.). It is of much importance, in discussing the present case, to note how many are the possible phases of the problem. Whether the contract is unilateral or bilateral, whether the promisee or the promisor is in alleged default, and whether the part obligation in question is valueless, illegal, or contra bonos mores. These distinctions, too often ignored by the courts, make any simple rule impossible. The accepted rules chance to have been developed largely in cases of unilateral contracts where the consid- eration was in part illegal. In such cases a promisee who has completely performed can require of the promisor performance of those agreements which are legal ; but, in the converse case, the performance by the promisee of an illegal act as part consideration is against public policy, nor could such promisee, by performing the legal parts only, call upon the promisor to perform. City Works v. Jones, 102 Cal. 506; Pettit's Admrs. v. Pettit^s Distributees, 32 Ala. 288. These cases of unilateral contracts, where the provisions are in part illegal, are not always carefully distinguished from the cases where the stipulations are in part valueless. In unilateral con- tracts of this sort, a promisee who has fully performed can, as before, compel the promisor to perform those of his obligations which are enforce- able; but further, in this converse case, the performance by the promisee of all the considerations asked, valuable and valueless, is always a good acceptance; for if one consideration performed is valuable the law is sat- isfied. Jamieson v. Renwick, 17 Vict. L. R. 124; King v. Sears, 2 C. M. & R. 48. So much for unilateral contracts; but in the principal case the con- tract is bilateral. Now the rules governing in unilateral contracts evi- dently have equal force in bilateral contracts to make enforceable the legal obligations of a party sued, even if part of his obligations be illegal,