Document Type

Response or Comment

Publication Date

1-1920

Abstract

In the recent case of Preston v. Preston the supreme court of Michigan had occasion to consider the question as to whether or not one for whose benefit a contract is made has any enforcible rights. The suit was one 'in Chancery, the donee plaintiff was an invalid, and every consideration of justice and equity demanded that she be given relief. The court had, however, to face the fact that in recent cases it had indicated its opinion to be that the third party beneficiary has no rights. In Modern Maccabees v. Sharp, (1910) 163 Mich. 449, 456 the court speaking through the late Justice Ostrander had said, "The general rule in this state is regarded as settled. I see no reason for saying that it is not the same in proceedings at law and in equity." Again in In re Bush's Estate. (1917) 109 Mich. 102, 196. Justice Kuhn, the writer of the opinion in the principal case, had said, "No serious claim is made that a promise made by one person to another for the benefit of a third-a stranger to the consideration-will support an action by the latter according to the law of this state." And at page 199, "But the situation before us is not merely a question of applying the remedy to the rights of the parties, but under the law as it existed at the time this claim was filed, the claimant had no rights arising out of the transaction against the defending estate."


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