Samuel Freeman Miller

“ If we examine the proposition as one of agency, it is still clearer that unless there was a contract binding the defendants to accept and ratify a sale by the plaintiff for the sum of $40,000 or more, made at any time, they could, before such sale was completed, withdraw and revoke the plaintiff's agency without liability to him on account of the special offer set up by him. ”

“ The plaintiff offered to introduce some parol testimony to show that the obligation of Backus & Morse was to take and pay for the land as soon as the title could be examined. This was excluded by the court, and its exclusion is assigned for error. While it is certainly true that in some classes of cases a contract between persons not parties to the suit may, when introduced, be contradicted or varied by parol testimony, the principle can have no application in a case like the present. This was a contract concerning real estate, which the statute required to be in writing to make it valid. ”

“ On any other hypothesis, there is a want of consideration in the contract, the defendants being bound for an indefinite period of time to accept the money whenever it might suit the plaintiff to pay it, while he was not bound to pay or abandon the right to pay at any period within any fixed time. ”