Case Facts
In this case, the claimant, Anthony Lampleigh, brought an action in assumpsit against the defendant, Thomas Brathwait. The defendant had killed a man named Patrick Mahume and, immediately after committing the felony, required Lampleigh to labour and do his endeavour to obtain a pardon from the King on his behalf. The obligation placed upon Lampleigh was to endeavour to procure the pardon — not to guarantee its procurement — the distinction between his end and his office being expressly noted by the court.
In response to that request, Lampleigh rode and journeyed at his own charges from London to Royston, where the King was then residing, and back to London, and thereafter to and from Newmarket, all in the effort to obtain the pardon. Brathwait subsequently promised to pay Lampleigh the sum of £100 in consideration of those endeavours. He failed to pay, and Lampleigh brought his claim seeking damages of £120.
The defendant pleaded non assumpsit, and the jury found for the claimant, awarding damages of £100. Judgment was then challenged in arrest of judgment on the basis that the consideration was past — that is, the endeavours had already been performed before Brathwait made his promise to pay — and accordingly the central legal issue before the court was whether such past consideration could be sufficient to make the promise enforceable.
Held
The court held that the promise was enforceable. Although the consideration was technically past at the time the promise was made, it was not a bare or naked past act. Because Brathwait had specifically requested Lampleigh to undertake those endeavours, the subsequent promise to pay was not a mere voluntary gratuity but was coupled with the prior request. The jury's verdict confirmed that Lampleigh had done his endeavour in accordance with the request. Judgment was accordingly given for the claimant.
It should be noted that one member of the court, Justice Warburton, dissented. He took the view that merely riding up and down without anything actually accomplished upon arrival was insufficient to constitute good consideration. The majority — comprising the Chief Justice and the other two judges — rejected that position and found for the claimant.
Ratio Decidendi
The ratio of the case rests upon a critical distinction between a voluntary courtesy and an act performed in response to a prior request. The court articulated the principle in the following terms: a mere voluntary courtesy will not support an assumpsit, but if that courtesy was moved by a suit or request of the party who subsequently gives the promise, it will bind — for the promise, though it follows in time, is not naked, but couples itself with the prior suit and with the merits procured by that suit.
The court further reasoned that wherever a promise is built upon a thing done at the promisor's request, the execution of the act must pursue the request, in the same way as a commission operates. This establishes the request–act–promise sequence as the doctrinal foundation of the exception to the general rule against past consideration.
The court also addressed the distinction between executed and executory consideration. Where consideration is executed — past and incorporated with the promise — it cannot be traversed separately. If, however, the act was never performed at all, the promise would be a nudum pactum and therefore unenforceable.
Three conditions may therefore be distilled from the case as necessary for past consideration to be treated as valid:
- The act must have been done at the express prior request of the promisor.
- The act and the subsequent promise must be read together, so that the promise is not detached from the request that generated it.
- The act must not be a mere voluntary courtesy — it must have been undertaken in response to the request, such that the parties understood a reward or payment was contemplated.
These conditions were later refined and restated in Re Casey's Patents [1892].
Obiter Dicta
Not applicable.