CONDITION

(A) contracts, wills. In its most extended signification, a condition is a clause in a contract or agreement which has for its object to suspend, to rescind, or to modify the principal obligation; or in case of a will, to suspend, revoke, or modify the devise or bequest. It is in fact by itself, in many cases, an agreement; and a sufficient foundation as an agreement in writing, for a bill in equity, praying for a specific performance. 2. Conditions sometimes suspend the obligation; as, when it is to have no effect until they are fulfilled; as, if I bind myself to pay you one thousand dollars on condition that the ship Thomas Jefferson shall arrive in the United States from Havre; the contract is suspended until the arrival of the ship. 3. The condition sometimes rescinds the contract; as, when I sell you my horse, on condition that he shall be alive on the first day of January, and he dies before that time. 4. A condition may modify the contract; as, if I sell you two thousand bushels of corn, upon condition that my crop shall produce that much, and it produces only fifteen hundred bushels. 5. In a less extended acceptation, but in a true sense, a condition is a future and uncertain event, on the existence or non-existence of which is made to depend, either the accomplishment, the modification, or the rescission of an obligation or testamentary disposition. 6. There is a marked difference between a condition and a limitation. When a in is given generally, but the gift may defeated upon the happening of an uncertain event, the latter is called a condition but when it is given to be enjoyed until the event arrives, it is a limitation. It is not easy to say when a condition will be considered a covenant and when not, or when it will be holden to be both. 9. Conditions are of various kinds; 1. as to their form, they are express or implied. 2. As to their object, they are lawful or unlawful; 3. as to the time when they are to take effect, they are precedent or subsequent; 4. as to their nature, they are possible or impossible 5. as to their operation, they are positive or negative; 6. is to their divisibility, they are copulative or disjunctive; 7. as to their agreement with the contract, they are consistent or repugnant; 8. as to their effect, they are resolutory or suspensive. These will be severally considered. 10. An express condition is one created by express words; as for instance, a condition in a lease that if the tenant shall not pay the rent at the day, the lessor may reenter. 11. An implied condition is one created by law, and not by express words; for example, at common law, the tenant for life holds upon the implied condition not to commit waste. 12 . A lawful or legal condition is one made in consonance with the law. This must be understood of the law as existing at the time of making the condition, for no change of the law can change the force of the condition. For example, a conveyance was made to the grantee, on condition that he should not aliens until be reached the age of twenty-five years. Before he acquired this age be aliened, and made a second conveyance after he obtained it; the first deed was declared void, and the last valid. When the condition was imposed, twenty-five was the age of majority in the state; it was afterwards changed to twenty-one. Under these circumstances the condition was held to be binding. 13. An unlawful or illegal condition is one forbidden by law. When the law prohibits, in express terms, the transaction in respect to which the condition is made, and declares it void, such condition is then void; but when it is prohibited, without being declared void, although unlawful, it is not void. Conditions in restraint of marriage are odious, and are therefore held to the utmost rigor and strictness. They are contrary to sound policy, and by the Roman law were all void. 14. A condition precedent is one which must be performed before the estate will vest, or before the obligation is to be performed. Whether a condition shall be considered as precedent or subsequent, depends not on the form or arrangement of the words, but on the manifest intention of the parties, on the fair construction of the contract. 15. A subsequent condition is one which enlarges or defeats an estate or right, already created. A conveyance in fee, reserving a life estate in a part of the land, and made upon condition that the grantee shall pay certain sums of money at divers times to several persons, passes the fee upon condition subsequent. Sometimes it becomes of great importance to ascertain whether the condition is precedent or subsequent. When a precedent condition becomes impossible by the act of God, no estate or right vests; but if the condition is subsequent, the estate or right becomes absolute. (B) persons. The situation in civil society which creates certain relations between the individual, to whom it is applied, and one or more others, from which mutual rights and obligations arise. Thus the situation arising from marriage gives rise to the conditions of husband and wife that of paternity to the conditions of father and child. In contracts every one is presume to know the condition of the person with whom he deals. A man making a contract with an infant cannot recover against him for a breach of the contract, on the ground that he was not aware of his condition.