Stilk v Myrick
Stilk v Myrick is an English contract law case heard in the King's Bench |King's Bench] on the subject of consideration. In his verdict, the judge, Lord Ellenborough decided that in cases where an individual was bound to do a duty under an existing contract, that duty could not be considered valid consideration for a new contract. It's Ratio decidendi was limited by Williams v Roffey Bros & Nicholls Ltd in which the Court of Appeal suggested that it ‘involved circumstances of a very special nature’ and that ‘here were strong public policy grounds at that time to protect the master and owners of a ship’. It was also suggested that situations formerly handled by consideration could instead be handled by the doctrine of economic duress.
Facts
Stilk was contracted to work on a ship owned by Myrick for £5 a month, promising to do anything needed in the voyage regardless of emergencies. After the ship docked at Cronstadt two men deserted, and after failing to find replacements the captain promised the crew the wages of those two men divided between them if they fulfilled the duties of the missing crewmen as well as their own. After arriving at their home port the captain refused to pay the crew the money he had promised to them.The defence, represented by Garrow, argued that the agreement between the captain and the sailors or seamen
was contrary to public policy, and utterly void. In West India voyages, crews are often thinned greatly by death and desertion; and if a promise of advanced wages were valid, exorbitant claims would be set up on all such occasions. This ground was strongly taken by Lord Kenyon in Harris v Watson, Peak. Cas. 72, where that learned Judge held, that no action would lie at the suit of a sailor on a promise of a captain to pay him extra wages, in consideration of his doing more than the ordinary share of duty in navigating the ship; and his Lordship said, that if such a promise could be enforced, sailors would in many cases suffer a ship to sink unless the captain would accede to any extravagant demand they might think proper to make.
The lawyers for the plaintiff unsuccessfully tried distinguishing that unlike Harris, the captain had voluntarily offered the extra money, rather than being pressured by the crewmen.
Judgment
There are two reports of this case: Campbell's report 2 Camp 317, 170 ER 1168 and Espinasse's report 6 Esp 129, 170 ER 851. Campbell's report is generally taken as more authoritative. Whereas Espinasse's report made no mention of consideration, Campbell's report quoted Lord Ellenborough as remarking:Contract law scholar Grant Gilmore has argued that Lord Ellenborough's focus on consideration doctrine, as opposed to the public policy rationale of Harris, was attributable to the King's Bench's ongoing efforts to repudiate Lord Mansfield's conflation of consideration with moral obligations.