In the next place, the award must be possible;(x) for an award requiring that to be done which cannot be done, is senseless and useless. But the impossibility which vitiates an award is one which belongs to the nature of the thing, and not to the accidental disability of the party at the time. (y) Thus, if he be ordered to pay money on a day that is past, this is void; (z) so, if he be required to give up a deed which he neither has nor may expect to have; (a) but if he be directed to pay * money, the award is good, although he has no money; for it creates a valid debt against him. (b)1 Nor can a party avoid an award on

(u) That certainty to a common intent is sufficient, see Wood v. Earle, 6 Rawle, 44; Brown v. Warnock, 6 Dana, 402; Case v. Ferris, 2 Hill, 76; Doolittle v. Malcolm, 8 Leigh, 608; Coze v. Gent, 1 McMullan, 802; 1 Roll. Abr. tit Arb. (H.) pl. 14; Cargey v. Aitcheson, 2 B. & C. 170; Doe d. Williams v. Richardson, 8 Taunt. 697; Cayme v. Watts, 8 D. & R. 224; Grier v. Grier. 1 Dall. 178; Kingston v. Kincaid, 1 Wash. C. C. 448. Thus an award to pay the "taxable cost," is sufficiently certain. Nichols v. Rensselaer Mut. Ins. Co. 22 Wend. 126; Macon v. Crump, 1 Call, 675; Brown v. Warnock, 6 Dana, 402. So to pay a certain sum in 90 days, and interest. Skeels v. Chickering, 7 Met 816. See Beale v. Beale, Cro. Car. 888; Furnis v. Hallom, Barnes, 166; Fox v. Smith, 2 Wilson, 267; Bigelow v. Maynard, 4 Cush. 817; Pearson v. Archbold, 11 M. & W. 477; Bourke v. Lloyd, 10 M. & W. 660; England v. Davidson, 9 Dowl. P. C. 1062; Mortin v. Burge, 4 A. & E. 078; Purdy v. Delavan, 1 Caines, 804; Luts v. Linthicum, 8 Pet 165; Brickhouse v. Hunter, 4 Hen. & Mun. 363; Coxe v, Lundy, Coxe, 255. As to awards of costs, see Harden v. Harden, 11 Gray, 435; Dudley v. Thomas, 28 Cal. 365.

(v) Oldfleld v. Wilmer, 1 Leon. 140; Lee v. Elkins, 12 Mod. 585; Simmonds v. Swaine, 1 Taunt. 549; Commonwealth v. Pejepscut Proprietors, 7 Mass. 399; Wharton v. King, 2 B. & Ad. 528; Thornton v. Carson, 7 Cranch, 596.

(w) Freeman v. Baspoule, 2 Brownl. 309; Imlay v. Wikoff, 1 South. 132; Blood v. Shine, 2 Fla. 127. An award of "taxable costs" to be paid by one party is not void for uncertainty. That is certain which can be rendered certain. Wright v. Smith, 19 Vt. 110.

(x) Colwel v. Child, 1 Ch. Cas. 87; Knuckle v. Kunckle, 1 Ball. 364.

(y) 1 Roll. Abr. tit Arb. (B.) pl. 16; and see Wharton v. King, 2 B. & Ad. 628.

(z) 1 Roll. Abr. tit. Arb. (B.) pl. 17.

(a) Lee v. Elkins, 12 Mod. 585.

(b) Brooke, Abr. tit Arb. pl. 89; 1 Roll. Abr. tit Arb. (F.) pl. 2.

1 Where a statute providing that an award for land taken for street improvements in a city should be paid from a fund to be assessed, was held unconstitutional as affordthe ground of an impossibility created by himself, after the award, or perhaps beforehand, if for the purpose of evading an expected award. (c)

This impossibility may be actual, or it may be that created by law; for an award which requires that a party should do what the law forbids him to do, is void, either in whole, or for so much as is thus against the law, if that can be severed from the rest. (d)

An award must be reasonable. (e) If it be of things in themselves of no value or advantage to the parties, or out of all proportion to the justice and requirements of the case, or if it undertake to determine for the parties what they should determine for themselves, as that the parties should intermarry, it is void. It is not unreasonable, however, merely because it lays a burden on one party only, and requires nothing of the other. It used to be said, that mutuality was essential to an award. (f) It is now certain that this mutuality need not appear upon the face of the award; and indeed it can hardly be supposed necessary at all. (g) If A and B refer only a claim which A has on * B, and the award is simply that B pay A a certain sum of money, it would be good, but it would have no element of mutuality that did not belong to it necessarily. (h) An award under a submission

(c) Com. Dig. tit Arb. (E. 12).

(d) 1 Roll. Abr. tit. Arb. (G.) pl. 1. See Alder v. Savill, 6 Taunt 454; Maybin v. Coulon, 4 Dall. 206; Harris v. Curnow, 2 Chitty, 594; Turner v. Swainson, 1 M. & W. 572.

(e) See 1 Roll. Abr. tit Arb. (B.) pl.

12, 13; Cooper v.--------, 8 Ch. Rep. 76, cited in 1 Vera. 157; Earl v. Stocker, 2

Vera. 251; Cavendish v.--------, 1 Ch. Cas.

270. But a strong case of unreasonableness must be made out in order to induce courts to set aside an award; since the parties made choice of their own judge, See Wood v. Griffith, 1 Swanst 43; Brown v. Brown, 1 Vern. 167, 2 Ch. Cas. 140; Waller v. King, 9 Mod. 68; Hardy v. Innes, 6 J. B. Moore, 674. As to the consistency required in an award, see Ames v. Millward, 2 J. B. Moore, 713.

(f) 1 Roll. Abr. tit Arbit (K.). And see Gibson v. Powell, 5 Smedes & M. 712; McKeen v. Oliphant, 8 Harrison, 442.

(g) The doctrine of mutuality is not now applied in the strict sense in which it was formerly taken. Horrell v. M'Alexander, 3 Rand. 94. It is not necessary that the same acts should be done by each party. Monroe v. Alaire, 2 Caines, 820; Kunckle v. Kunckle, 1 Dall. 864. The doctrine of mutuality is fully expounded in Purdy v. Delavan, 1 Caines, 816, by Kent, J., and in Jones v. Boston Mill Corporation, 6 Pick. 148. In Onion v. Robinson, 16 Vt. 510, O. and W. having a claim against R. for money received, to their use, and R. alleging that he had paid it to O., they submitted the matter to arbitrators with authority to award costs and damages, who awarded that R. account to O. for a certain sum, in damages and costs. In a suit on the award in favor of O., it was held that there was no mutuality in the submission between O. and R., and that neither the rights nor liabilities of either were affected by the award. Held, also, that the submission and award, though legally invalid, might be given in evidence under a declaration setting forth the above facts.