Kramas v. Beattie

A half century ago New Hampshire by judicial decision, quietly and unheralded, modernized a portion of the law of consideration by lopping off one of the historical errors of the common law. It repudiated Pinnel's Case, 5 Coke 117a (1602) and Foakes v. Beer, 9 App. Cas. 605 (1884) as being neither logical nor just. See, Ferson, The Rule in Foakes v. Beer, 31 Yale L. J. 15 ( 1921); Havighurst, Consideration, Ethics and Administration, 42 Colum. L. Rev. 1, 27 (1942 ). “ The rule that the payment of a less sum can never sustain an agreement to discharge a greater, because without consideration,…