Promise, Promisee, Promisor

PROMISE - An engagement by which the promisor contracts towards another to perform or do something to the advantage of the latter.

When a promise is reduced to the form of a written agreement under seal, it is called a covenant.

In order to be binding on the promisor, the promise must be made upon a sufficient con@ideration - when made without consideration, however, it may be binding in foro conscientice, it is not obligatory in law, being nudtim pactum.

When a promise is made, all that is said at the time, in relation to it, must be considered; if, therefore, a man promise to pay all he owes, accompanied by a denial that he owes anything, no action will lie to enforce such a promise.

And when the promise is conditional, the condition must be performed before it becomes of binding force. Promises are express or implied.

evidence. When a defendant has been arrested, he is frequently in duced to make confessions in consequence of promises made to him, that if he will tell the truth, he will be either discharged or favored: in such a case evidence of the confession cannot be received, because being obtained by the flattery of hope, it comes in so questionable a shape, when it is to be considered evidence of guilt, that no credit ought to be given to it. This is the principle, but what amounts to a promise is not so easily defined.

PROMISEE - A person to whom a promise has been made.

In general a promisee can maintain an action on a promise made to him, but when the consideration moves not from the promisee, but some other person, the latter, and not the promisee, has a cause of action, because he is the person for whose use the contract was made.

PROMISOR - One who makes a promise.

The promisor is bound to fulfil his promise, unless when it is contrary to law, as a promise to steal or to commit an assault and battery; when the fulfilment is prevented by the act of God, as where one has agreed to teach another drawing and he loses his sight, so that he cannot teach it; when the promisee prevents the promisor from doing what he agreed to do; when the promisor has been discharged from his promise by the promisee, when the promise, has been made without a sufficient consideration; and, perhaps, in some other cases, the duties of the promisor are at an end.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.