BOOK REVIEW

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 58, 1 December 1917, Page 2

BOOK REVIEW

RESCISSION OF CONTRACTS

"Rescission of Contracts": A Treatise on tho _ Principles Governing the Rescission, Discharge, Avoidance, and Dissolution of Contracts. By Charles Bruce Morison, K.C., published by Stevens and Haynes, London. 8 vo.; xxxii, aud 272 pages.

Mr. Morison's work deals.with several branches of tho law- of contract which are- constantly boing considered by practitioners. No comprehensive Btatoment of the principles go/eruing them can bo found cither in judicial decisions or authoritative, text books. The book is an able and valuable attempt to systematise and lay down the principles to be extracted from the decisions on which questions relating to the discharge. of contracts by breach and to. tho conditions on which rescission is exercisable are to ce Jeternnu. ed. The author las brought to this difficult task originality of tho'ipht and criticism, and has with great industry made a careful analysis of the basic principles governing these branches of the law of contract. Mr. Morison has pointed out ihat iho terminology usei 1 . in the decisions upon these subjects'has frequently been so vaguo and inexact as to tend to confuse the principles on' which they are m effect founded. This inexactitude of language, was only to le expected in the gradual development of law from the cases from time to time decided by Judges. The law of contract, important as it is in- the everyday affairs of cominorcial life, has always been a doctrine of slow growth, - and its systemisation is only met with in an advanced stage of legal development. English text writers on contract law, learned as they have been, have never attempted to state comprehensively the principles on which depend the right of an innocent party to treat his obligations under a contract as terminated by breach on the part of the other ,contractor; nor have they adequately dealt with tho doctrine of failure- of consideration, or defined with reasonable' exactness what is the restitution which is required, to .warrant the exercise of the right of rescission where that right exists,'.":' This is the more remarkable because these questions aro matters of everyday occurrence;.. and no comprehensive guide to the principles underlying these questions has been'available.

Every- practitioner has 'folfc' the difficulty- of' explaining to his clients the nature of the breach which will justify him.in'treating a contract as discharged .thereby. This topic has been courageously and ably dealt with in this work. The considerations relating to a contract wholly executory, and to a contract substantially performed are lucidly explained and kept constantly before the. mind of the studont. The practical test for determining the character of the breach which absolves the innocent party from the obligation to further perform the contract laid I down in- this work appeaYs to be in accordance with authority, and will be found most useful to thb practitioner. But to a student of jurisprudence the very illuminating discussion which gives to failure of consideration what the author regards as its true plnce in this doctrino.is both interesting and instructive. It involves a useful reviow. (valuable on other cognate branches) of the cases on this branch of law; and. a very careful examination of terms borrowed by analogy from the doctrine, relating to actions on covenant; and applied, not alwavs with propriety and fitness, to the discharge of obligations under simple contracts. • .Tn'ri. author.deals,with., two other topics which the practitioner will find exceedingly useful.,' The first relates to what performance 'of a"' contract short of complete performance will give a remedy where there has been'ah acceptance of the benefits of partial performance—a topic on which the law does not appear to be well settled; and the other is the debatable question as to whether there is any practical distinction in its effect on the right of discharge between a false or unfulfilled representation outside the contract but inducing it and a false or unfulfilled representation' embodied in the contract.

The author says that his work does not aim at heing a collection of cases in point; yet an examination of the hook will show that, most of the decisions dealing with the topics discussed by the author are either examined or referred to. The analysis and discussion of tho decisions referred to in the appendix is most ably done. Altogether it is a work which practitioners wiH find most useful not only because of its intrinsic merit, hut because it deals with branches of the law of contract on which they have long wanted a- comprehensive text book.