Wilmington and Weldon Railroad Company v. King/Dissent Bradley

MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY dissenting.

I dissent from the judgment of the court in this case. The parties never contracted that the price to be paid for the wood was to be equivalent to any amount of specie. The price contracted for was one dollar per cord. Specie at that time was worth twenty-one dollars to one of Confederate currency. Can it be supposed that the parties agreed on a value of five cents per cord for the wood? The suggestion does not appear to me to be reasonable. The truth is, that the relation between Confederate currency and specie in North Carolina at that time is entirely unsuitable to be used as a rule in estimating the value of contracts. Specie could not be had at all, and consequently the relation between currency and specie was no guide as to the value of currency in purchasing commodities. The verdict finds that the wood, at the time of the contract, was worth fifty cents in specie per cord; and yet it sold for a dollar in currency. This shows that currency was equivalent to fifty cents on the dollar in purchasing capacity. I hold, therefore, that the law of North Carolina, in allowing the jury to estimate the real value of the consideration in cases where it is impossible to get at the true value of the money named in the contract, is a most sensible and just law.

By what authority do we scale down the price named in the contract at all? Is it not on the ground that the value of the money named by the parties is not a true criterion of the value of the contract? When once we admit this, we make that money a mere commodity, and endeavor to find its true value. How, then, is its true value to be measured? Is it to be measured only by the amount of specie it would purchase at the time, when, perhaps, no specie existed in the country? Why not measure its value by the amount of United States treasury notes which it would buy? They were money, as well as specie. But suppose they were not to be had in the market any more than specie. Under such circumstances, is not the only true method of ascertaining its value the purchasing capacity which it had? I hold that this is the true test, when, as stated by the Legislature of North Carolina in its preamble to the act, it is impossible to scale the value of Confederate money accurately for all parts of the State under the varying circumstances that arose. Under such circumstances, the only fair mode of ascertaining the purchasing value of the currency used is to ascertain the true value of the consideration or thing purchased. This is not to set aside the contract of the parties, but to carry out their contract. It is the proper method of ascertaining what their contract really meant, and giving it full force and effect.

Where a regular current ratio exists between a paper currency and specie or other lawful money, of course it ought to be used as the rule to ascertain the true value of contracts. But when no such regular marketable value does exist, then the next best mode of getting at the value of the contract, or of the currency mentioned therein, is to ascertain the true value of the subject-matter about which the contract was made. This is what the Legislature of North Carolina authorized to be done, and what was done in this case.

I think the judgment should be affirmed.