Kirksey v. Kirksey
Alabama Supreme Court · Decided January 1845 · Core case
Full citation
Kirksey v. Kirksey, 8 Ala. 131 (1845).
VerifiedQuotes, pinpoints and citation checked word for word against the opinion; facts checked against the opinion before publication. October 23, 2026.This brief explains the opinion as issued. Later treatment and current-law status are not assessed here.
Kirksey
promisordefendant
Kirksey
promiseeplaintiff
Brief
Facts
The defendant promised to furnish the plaintiff with a house and land to cultivate until she could raise her family. The plaintiff broke up and moved to the defendant's, a distance of sixty miles, and sustained loss and inconvenience in doing so. She brought an action against the defendant for breach of the promise. The Supreme Court of Alabama's opinion records a disagreement on the bench. Justice Ormond wrote that the inclination of his mind was that the plaintiff's loss and inconvenience in breaking up and moving was a sufficient consideration — what he was inclined to regard as support for this particular promise — to support the promise. His brothers on the court thought the promise was a mere gratuity, and that an action would not lie for its breach.
Issue
Was the plaintiff's loss and inconvenience in breaking up and moving sixty miles to the defendant's a sufficient consideration to support the defendant's promise, or was the promise a mere gratuity for whose breach no action would lie?
Holding
The defendant's promise to furnish the plaintiff with a house and land to cultivate until she could raise her family was a mere gratuity, so no action lay for its breach. The plaintiff's loss and inconvenience in breaking up and moving sixty miles to the defendant's did not make the promise enforceable.
IRAC
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