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Editing Contracts/Illusory promise
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Illusory promises are so named because they merely hold the illusion of contract.Β For example, a promise of the form, "I will give you ten dollars if I feel like it," is purely illusory and will not be enforced as a contract. | Illusory promises are so named because they merely hold the illusion of contract.Β For example, a promise of the form, "I will give you ten dollars if I feel like it," is purely illusory and will not be enforced as a contract. | ||
It is a general principle of contract law that courts should err on the side of enforcing contracts. | It is a general principle of contract law that courts should err on the side of enforcing contracts.{{Citation needed|date=December 2010}} Parties entering into the arrangement presumably had the intention of forming an enforceable contract, and so courts generally attempt to follow this intention.<ref>See ''Portland Gasoline Co. v. Superior Marketing Co., 150 Tex. 533, 243 S.W.2d 823, 824, (1951''), overruled on other grounds by ''Northern Natural Gas Co. v. Conoco, Inc., 986 S.W.2d. 603 (Tex. 1998)''.</ref> | ||
A promise conditioned upon an event within the promisor's control is not illusory if the promisor also "impliedly promises to make reasonable effort to bring the event about or to use good faith and honest judgment in determining whether or not it has in fact occurred."<ref>1 Corbin on Contracts, s 149, at 659.</ref> | A promise conditioned upon an event within the promisor's control is not illusory if the promisor also "impliedly promises to make reasonable effort to bring the event about or to use good faith and honest judgment in determining whether or not it has in fact occurred."<ref>1 Corbin on Contracts, s 149, at 659.</ref> |