Central Trust Co. of Ill. v. Chicago Auditorium Assn.

Citations

• 240 U.S. 581
• 36 S. Ct. 412
• 60 L. Ed. 811
• 1916 U.S. LEXIS 1485

Syllabus

<p>Appeals from decisions of the Circuit Court of Appeals, allowing or rejecting a claim in bankruptcy, are, in the absence of the certificate prescribed by § 25b-2, limited under § 25b-l to cases involving Federal questions of the kind described in § 237, Jud. Code.</p> <p>Whether damages for anticipatory breach of an executory contract which one of the parties can cancel on notice after a stated period can be recovered for the life of the contract or only up to the end of such period after the breach involves no Federal question.</p> <p>Where the question on which a cross appeal is based is of general importance in relation to questions involved on the direct appeal, the court may, and in this case does, allow a certiorari in lieu of the cross appeal which must be dismissed.</p> <p>The general rule, the exceptions to which are not material in this case, is that where a party, bound by an executory contract, repudiates his obligations or disables himself from performance, the promisee has the option to treat the contract as ended and- may maintain an action at once for damages occasioned by the anticipatory breach. The intervention of bankruptcy, held, under the circumstances of this case, to constitute such a breach, notwithstanding the petition was involuntary; and also held that the claim of the promisee is one founded upon a contract expressed or implied and provable under .§ 63a-4, and that the damages may be liquidated under § 63b.</p> <p>In this case, held that the claim may be proved for damages occasioned by the breach covering the entire life of the contract, notwithstanding the party proving the claim had the right to cancel on a stated notice, that provision not being reciprocal.</p> <p>216 Fed. Rep. 308, affirmed as to allowance of claim; cross appeal therefrom dismissed; certiorari allowed and reversed as to amount of claim allowed.</p>