LAW 2001 9 Dunton v Dunton PDF

Preview

Summary

Download LAW 2001 9 Dunton v Dunton PDF

Description

Dunton v Dunton (1892) 18 VLR 114 FACTS The parties entered into a written agreement whereby Mr Dunton agreed to pay his former wife an allowance so long as she behaved ‘with sobriety, and in a respectable, orderly, and virtuous manner’ and provided she did no act that would subject she or Mr Dunton to hate contempt or ridicule’. The question arose as to whether this agreement was legally binding. Was there consideration for Mr Dunton’s promise to pay the allowance?

ISSUE •

Was the promise to behave respectably good consideration since Mrs Dunton was already expected to do so?

COURT RULING The terms of the agreement did imply a promise by Mrs Dunton and this was good consideration. Though promising not to do something which cannot lawfully be done is not good consideration, a promise not to do something which can be lawfully done is good consideration. Here Mrs Dunton promised to give up a liberty. ‘[Mrs Dunton] was released by the decree for the dissolution of marriage from her conjugal obligation to the defendant to conduct herself with sobriety, and in a respectable, orderly, and virtuous manner …’ As a result, 'her promise to surrender her liberty and to conduct herself in the manner desired by the defendant constituted … a good consideration.'...