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    Balfour V Balfour

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    ماتو اریکا
    Mr. Balfour promised to pay his wife £30 per month while she stayed in England due to illness, but later stopped payments. She sued to enforce the promise. The lower court found it was a valid contract since she provided consideration by agreeing to stay in England. However, the Court of Appeal found that agreements between spouses regarding support are often domestic, not legally enforceable contracts, and there was no intent here to create a legal obligation since it was a natural arrangement between husband and wife. The promise was not an enforceable contract.

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    Balfour V Balfour

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    ماتو اریکا
    207 views2 pages
    Mr. Balfour promised to pay his wife £30 per month while she stayed in England due to illness, but later stopped payments. She sued to enforce the promise. The lower court found it was a valid contract since she provided consideration by agreeing to stay in England. However, the Court of Appeal found that agreements between spouses regarding support are often domestic, not legally enforceable contracts, and there was no intent here to create a legal obligation since it was a natural arrangement between husband and wife. The promise was not an enforceable contract.

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    Mr. Balfour promised to pay his wife £30 per month while she stayed in England due to illness, but later stopped payments. She sued to enforce the promise. The lower court found it was a valid contract since she provided consideration by agreeing to stay in England. However, the Court of Appeal found that agreements between spouses regarding support are often domestic, not legally enforceable contracts, and there was no intent here to create a legal obligation since it was a natural arrangement between husband and wife. The promise was not an enforceable contract.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    207 views2 pages

    Balfour V Balfour

    Uploaded by

    ماتو اریکا
    Mr. Balfour promised to pay his wife £30 per month while she stayed in England due to illness, but later stopped payments. She sued to enforce the promise. The lower court found it was a valid contract since she provided consideration by agreeing to stay in England. However, the Court of Appeal found that agreements between spouses regarding support are often domestic, not legally enforceable contracts, and there was no intent here to create a legal obligation since it was a natural arrangement between husband and wife. The promise was not an enforceable contract.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    Balfour v Balfour

    The present decision is the leading English case law which deals with the difference between
    legally enforceable agreements and agreements which are domestic in nature.

    Balfour v Balfour

    [1919] 2 KB 571

    Before the Court of Appeal (Civil Division)

    Bench: Warrington LJ, Duke LJ, Atkin LJ.

    Decided on: 25 June 1919

    Relevant Acts: Married Women’s Property Act 1882

    Brief Facts: Mr. Balfour- a civil engineer by profession- is the appellant in the present case. He
    used to live with his wife in Ceylon, Sri Lanka. During his vacations in the year 1915, they came
    to England. But on his return, Mrs. Balfour had developed a disease rheumatic arthritis. She was
    advised by her doctor to stay in England as a jungle climate would be detrimental to her health.
    As Mr. Balfour’s boat was about to set sail, he promised her £30 a month until she came back to
    Ceylon.
    Mr. Balfour continued to send the money to her wife in England for some time but subsequently,
    he stopped. In March 1918, Mrs. Balfour sued him to keep up with the monthly £30 payments.

    Procedural History: An additional judge of King’s Bench Division presided by Justice Sargant,
    held that the husband was under an obligation to support his wife and there exists a valid contract
    between the husband and the wife is valid. The consent of the wife to this arrangement of
    monthly transfer was a valid consideration to constitute a binding contract between the parties.

    The present appeal is filed by the husband who is aggrieved by this decision of the Division
    bench.

    Issue: Was there a valid contract between Mr. and Mrs. Balfour?

    Contention of the appellant: In the present case the promise for paying the due amount of
    money was merely a domestic agreement and was not a legal contract as it was a husband-wife
    relation and Mr. Balfour did not have any intention to create a legal relation.

    Contention of the respondent: The wife is eligible for the given amount of money as the
    husband entered into a legal contract by contract by offering his wife £30 and the wife agreed
    and stayed back in England.

    Held: There was no intention on behalf of Mr. Balfour to create a legal relation.
    Balfour v Balfour
    Ratio: There exist certain agreements which do not result in contracts within the meaning of the
    term ‘contract’ in our law. For example- two parties agree to take a walk together, there is an
    offer and acceptance of hospitality. It is quite common, and it is the natural and inevitable result
    of the relationship of husband and wife, that the two spouses should make arrangements between
    themselves for allowances, by which the husband agrees that he will pay to his wife a certain
    sum of money, per week, or per month, or per year, to cover either her own expenses or the
    necessary expenses of the household and of the children of the marriage, and in which the wife
    promises either expressly or impliedly to apply the allowance for the purpose for which it is
    given. To my mind, those agreements, or many of them, do not result in contracts at all.

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