The actions of indebitatus assumpsit is being extended to actions upon quasi-contract, in which the element of contract is not required e.
Assumpsit covered the whole province of debt, for which compurgation still existed, and much more.
In the common law courts, the action of assumpsit for enforcing certain promises is used more than the action of debt in those cases where there is a debt based on an agreement.
In Slade's case of 1602, the Court of the Queen's Bench held thatassumpsit may be brought in place of the action of debt.
So assumpsit supplants debt for recovering liquidated sums and is then called "indebitatus assumpsit".
Assumpsit covered the whole province of debt, and much more.
The first case in assumpsit /3/ only meant to adopt this long familiar thought.
Head, /1/ the argument was, that to charge one in assumpsit you must show either his public calling at the time of the delivery, or a special promise on sufficient consideration.
Lord Holt was well aware that the use of an assumpsit was not confined to contract.
The cause was for damage to the goods, and the plaintiff sued for a tort, laying an assumpsit by way of inducement to a charge of negligence, as in the days of Henry VI.
It was settled that assumpsit would lie for a mere omission or nonfeasance.
Assumpsit did not for a long time become an independent action of contract, and the allegation was simply the inducement to an action of tort.
And if instead of the thing itself he holds the proceeds of a sale, it is as reasonable to make him pay over its value in trover or assumpsit as it would have been to compel a surrender of the thing.
But when the mistake was made of supposing that all cases, whether proper torts or not, in which an assumpsit was alleged, were equally founded on the promise, one of two erroneous conclusions was naturally thought to follow.
It would seem that, in the period when assumpsit [286] was just growing into its full proportions, there was some little inclination to identify consideration with the Roman causa, taken in its broadest sense.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "assumpsit" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
