Bowen LJ said: ‘Even if it were true, as some scientific students of law believe, that a past service cannot support a future promise, you must look at the document and see if the promise cannot receive a proper effect in some other way. Now, the fact of a past service raises an implication that at the time it was rendered it was to be paid for, and, if it was a service which was to be paid for, when you get in the subsequent document a promise to pay, that promise may be treated either as an admission which evidences or as a positive bargain which fixes the amount of that reasonable remuneration on the faith of which the service was originally rendered. So that here for past services there is ample justification for the promise to give the third share ‘.
Bowen LJ
[1892] 1 Ch 104, [1891] UKLawRpCh 167
Commonlii
England and Wales
Contract
Updated: 04 December 2021; Ref: scu.372848