CONDITION and CONDITIONAL. As a legal term, condition signifies a provision in a contract, conveyance, grant, or will, that an estate or interest in property, or a personal obli gation, shall depend upon the happening of an uncertain event. The term is also applied to the event itself. If the condition is set forth in words it is called an express condition; if iL is infer able from the circumstances of the particular case it is called an implied condition. In Eng lish law conditions are also classified as condi tions and conditions subsequent. A n example of the former is the grant of an estate to A upon condition that he marry B: or the contract to charter a ship upon condition that it is in the port of Amsterdam. Here the event named must happen before the estate vests in A, or the contract obligation on the part of the hirer of the ship arises. An example of a condi tion subsequent is the grant of an estate to A upon condition that he continues to reside in a particular place: or the purchase of a piano upon condition that it shall 'stand up to correct pitch' for a year. Here the estate in A, or the obligation of the purchaser to keep and pay for the piano is annulled upon the non-performance of the condition. Impossible, illegal, or repug nant conditions are void. Accordingly, says Blackstone, "if they be conditions subsequent, the estate shall become absolute in the tenant, for he hath by the grant the estate vested in him, which shall not be defeated by a void condition. But if the condition be precedent, he shall take nothing by the grant, for he bath no estate until the condition is performed." A provision in a contract which is intended to operate as a condition in favor of one party may contain a binding promise of the other party. For example. A agrees to sell and deliver to B at a named time, place, and price a certain quan tity of merchantable corn ; and A tenders umner chantable corn at the agreed time, place, and price. B has the right not only to reject the corn, because the condition precedent to deliver merchantable corn has not been performed by A, but also to recover from A damages for breach of contract to deliver the agreed corn. Such a
provision in a contract may be called a promis sory condition. Of this class are the mutual promises of the seller to deliver the goods and of the buyer to pay for them—engagements which are sometimes called 'concurrent conditions.' Promissory conditions have been confused with warranties (see WARRANTY) by many judges and writers, but the English Sale of Goods Act of 1S93 makes a sharp distinction between the terms, and has done much to clear up the confusion in this branch of the law. See SALE.
Another and distinct class of provisions in con tracts may be styled casual or contingent condi tions, because they are intended to prevent any obligation attaching, to either party until their performance. An example of this class is af forded by an agreement for the sale of described goods to arrive by a specified ship. Here, if the ship does not arrive, or, if arriving, it has not the described goods on board, neither party is bound.
The word conditional frequently appears in standard legal phrases, some of the more impor tant, of which are the following: Conditional acceptance (of a bill of exchange) is an accept ance in which payment by the acceptor is de pendent upon the fulfillment of a condition there in named. Conditional adranre note, that note given by the master of a ship to a seaman, payable after the ship sails upon condition that the seaman goes with the ship. Conditional al lotment, conditional application, that is, the allotment of shares in a company, or the applica tion fur shares, made a speeilied condition. In the former case the applicant is nut bound to take the shares unless he has assented to the con dition, nor in the latter case unless the condition is performed. Consult : Blackstone, Com nica laries on the Lairs of England; Benjamin, Treatise on the Lan- of talc of Personal Property (7th ed., Boston, 1S991: Burdick, Late of .Sale of Personal Properly (2(1 ed., Boston, 1901) : consult also the Cyc/o/cdia of the Lairs of England, Vol iii. (London, 1897 ) .