Spires

Action brought to enforce the performance by the defendants of the following contract:

The complaint alleges that Spires, plaintiff’s assignor, built and put in operation an electric road in pursuance of the agreement and within the time limited. And the court found the allegations of the complaint to be true. The point contended for by the appellant is that there was no consideration for the contract, no obligation to build the road having been assumed by Spires, and hence there was no mutuality in the contract. It is now too well settled to permit of controversy that in such cases the completion of the work is an executed consideration which is sufficient to give mutuality to the contract. It is true that there was no mutuality until the road was built. But when the offer of the contract was accepted by the performance of its condition, it was too late to deny the consideration. These contracts have become familiar as stimulants to the construction of railroads and other public works, the inducement to the promisor, whether expressed or presumed, being the probable enhancement of the value of property by the construction. That such contracts or mere offers, unilateral at first,…