Mahlon Pitney

“ The decision must turn, we think, upon the familiar distinction between a law which enlarges, abridges, or modifies the obligation of a contract, and a law which merely modifies the remedy, by changing the time or the method in which the remedy shall be pursued, without substantial interference with the obligation of the contract itself. ”

“ But where parties have, in good faith and for a valuable consideration, entered into an engagement that is not contrary to good morals, and is invalid only because of some legal impediment, such as the incapacity of a nominal party or the omission of some merely formal requirement, there is ground for maintaining that the legislature may, by subsequent enactment, provide a legal remedy, and thus give vitality to the obligation that the parties intended to create. ”

“ Treating the bond as voluntarily made, and aside from the statute, it is, in its essence, a contract between the obligors (including the Surety Company) , on the one hand, and 'all persons doing work or furnishing materials' for the construction of the school building (including the Decorating Company as one of those persons) , on the other hand. The circumstance that the obligee in the bond as written was a public corporation named as trustee for the workman and materialmen affects the form, and not the substance, of the obligation. ”