Myers v. Drake

10 Watts 110

• Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: July 15, 1840
• Status: Published

Opinion

Per Curiam.

The evidence was offered in mitigation of damages, and properly rejected. There is a settled rule of compensation in every case like the present, which the unconscionableness of the bargain ought not to be suffered to disturb. There even was nothing unconscionable in making a bargain which the party supposed the other could not fulfil except at a sacrifice. The relation of buyer and seller is not a confidential one; and each of the parties is supposed to judge of his ability to perform his part for himself. A contract to perform an impossible thing may be void; but it never is impossible to procure and deliver an article of commerce which may be had in the market in some quarter of the world. The evidence was offered, however, not to avoid the contract, but to reduce the damages for a breach of it; and the hardness of the bargain ought not to have that effect.

Judgment affirmed.