Town Planning & Engineering Associates, Inc. v. Amesbury Specialty Co.

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• cautioning against imposing undue sanctions where a contract is violative of a statute
• describing severability of contract provisions that are void for public policy
• “As the facts regarding the illegality are substantially beyond dispute, it was for the judge to rule as matter of law on the consequence”
• “[o]ur cases warn against the sentimental fallacy of piling on sanctions unthinkingly once an illegality is found”; recovery allowed where violation of statute not so serious as to defeat action
• whether violation of licensing statute prevents recovery of compensation on contract depends on subject matter of contract, extent and materiality of illegal behavior, strength of underlying public policy, and fairness to parties
• illegality is a defense to breach of contract

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).