ACCORD - Contracts. A satisfaction
agreed upon between the party injuring and the party
injured, which when performed is a bar to all actions
upon this account.
In order to make a good accord it is essential: That
the accord be legal. An agreement to drop a criminal
prosecution as a satisfaction for an assault and imprisonment
is void.
It must be advantageous to the contracting party;
hence restoring to the plaintiff his chattels, or
his land, of which the defendant has wrongfully dispossessed
him, will not be any consideration to support a promise
by the plaintiff not to sue him for those injuries.
It must be certain; hence an agreement that the defendant
shall relinquish the possession of a house in satisfaction.,
is not valid, unless it is also agreed at what time
it shall be relinquished.
The defendant must be privy to the contract. If therefore
the consideration for the promise not to sue proceeds
from another, the defendant is a stranger to the agreement,
and the circumstance that the promise has been made
to him will be of no avail, but in such case equity
will grant relief by injunction.
The accord must be executed.
Accord with satisfaction when completed has two effects;
it is a payment of the debt; and it is a species of
sale of the thing given by the debtor to the creditor,
in satisfaction; but it differs from it in this, that
it is not valid until the delivery of the article,
and there is no warranty of the thing thus sold, except
perhaps the title; for in regard to this, it cannot
be doubted, that if the debtor gave on an accord and
satisfaction the goods of another, there would be
no satisfaction.
