This section is from the book "The Law Of Contracts", by Samuel Williston. Also available from Amazon: Treatise on the Law of Contracts.
Varying language of the fourth and seventeenth sections of the English statue............. | 525 |
Language of American statutes.......... | 526 |
Effect on noncompliance with the statue........... | 527 |
The statue does not affect fully executed agreements........... | 528 |
Illustrations of the effect of unenforceable contracts as against the original parties or their successors......... | 529 |
Third persons cannot take advantage of the statue............... | 530 |
Effect of the work "void" or a similar word in statues........... | 531 |
Divisible contracts.................................................. | 532 |
The doctrine of part performance applies exclusively to contracts for the sale of land.............. | 533 |
Quasi-contractual recovery for part performance of a contract within the statute............ | 534 |
Restoration or recovery in specie of what has been given or received...... | 535 |
Measure of damages.............. | 536 |
Recovery of the value of improvements................................ | 537 |
The statute as a defence to recovery by a plaintiff in default............. | 538 |
Sec. 626. Varying language of the fourth and seventeenth sections of the English statute. The fourth section of the English Statute of Frauds provides that "no action shall be brought," to charge the promisor upon any of the contracts therein enumerated unless a memorandum is made and signed. Section seventeen of the original statute provides that no contract for the sale of goods "shall be allowed to be good" unless the statute is complied with. These words of the latter section have been changed by the English Sale of Goods Act to "shall not be enforceable by action." The new words are supposed to reproduce accurately the legal effect of the earlier language1 and they have been copied in the American Uniform Sales Act. No distinction is made by the English courts in the effect of the fourth and seventeenth sections based on the difference of language herein alluded to.2
1 See, however, Morris v. Baron, [1918] A. C. 1.
2 It was indeed said by Parke, B., in Carrington v. Roots, 2 M. & W. 248,
 
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