But it will be enough for the purposes of this general survey to
deal with bilateral contracts, where there are undertakings on
both sides, and where the condition implied in favor of one party
is that the other shall make good what he on his part has
undertaken.
The undertakings of a contract may be for the existence of a fact
in the present or in the future. They can be promises only in the
latter case; but in the former, they be equally essential terms
in the bargain.
Here again we come on the law of representations, but in a new
phase. Being a part of the contract, it is always possible that
their truth should make a condition of the contract wholly
irrespective of any question of fraud. And it often is so in
fact. It is not, however, every representation embodied in the
words used on one side which will [328] make a condition in favor
of the other party. Suppose A agrees to sell, and B agrees to
buy, "A's seven-year-old sorrel horse Eclipse, now in the
possession of B on trial," and in fact the horse is
chestnut-colored, not sorrel. I do not suppose that B could
refuse to pay for the horse on that ground. If the law were so
foolish as to aim at merely formal consistency, it might indeed
be said that there was as absolute a repugnancy between the
different terms of this contract as in the ease of an agreement
to sell certain barrels of mackerel, where the barrels turned out
to contain salt. If this view were adopted, there would not be a
contract subject to a condition, there would be no contract at
all. But in truth there is a contract, and there is not even a
condition. As has been said already, it is not every repugnancy
that makes a contract void, and it is not every failure in the
terms of the counter undertaking that makes it voidable. Here it
plainly appears that the buyer knows exactly what he is going to
get, and therefore that the mistake of color has no bearing on
the bargain. /1/
If, on the other hand, a contract contained a representation
which was fraudulent, and which misled the party to whom it was
made, the contract would be voidable on the same principles as if
the representation had been made beforehand. But words of
description in a contract are very frequently held to amount to
what is sometimes called a warranty, irrespective of fraud.
Whether they do so or not is a question to be determined by the
court on grounds of common sense, looking to the meaning of the
words, the importance in the transaction of the facts [329] which
the words convey, and so forth. But when words of description are
determined to be a warranty, the meaning of the decision is not
merely that the party using them binds himself to answer for
their truth, but that their truth is a condition of the contract.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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