Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/413

 Ch. 25. the thing fo recoverable is called a thing, or choe, in action. Thus money due on a bond is a choe in action; for a property in the debt vets at the time of forfeiture mentioned in the obligation, but there is no poeion till recovered by coure of law. If a man promies, or covenants with me, to do any act, and fails in it, whereby I uffer damage; the recompene for this damage is a choe in action: for though a right to ome recompene vets in me, at the time of the damage done, yet what and how large uch recompene hall be, can only be acertained by verdict; and the poeion can only be given me by legal judgment and execution. In the former of thee caes the tudent will oberve, that the property, or right of action, depends upon an expres contract or obligation to pay a tated um: and in the latter it depends upon an implied contract, that if the covenantor does not perform the act he engaged to do, he hall pay me the damages I utain by this breach of covenant. And hence it may be collected, that all property in action depends entirely upon contracts, either expres or implied; which are the only regular means of acquiring a choe in action, and of the nature of which we hall dicoure at large in a ubequent chapter.

preent we have only to remark, that upon all contracts or promies, either expres or implied, and the infinite variety of caes into which they are and may be pun out, the law gives an action of ome ort or other to the party injured in cae of non-performance; to compel the wrongdoer to do jutice to the party with whom he has contracted, and, on failure of performing the identical thing he engaged to do, to render a atisfaction equivalent to the damage utained. But while the thing, or it's equivalent, remains in upene, and the injured party has only the right and not the occupation, it is called a choe in action; being a thing rather in potentia than in ee: though the owner may Rh