An illegal
agreement, under the common law of contract, is
one that the courts will not enforce because the purpose
of the agreement is to achieve an illegal end. The
illegal end must result from performance of the contract
itself, however. A contract that requires only legal
performance, such as the sale of packs of cards to a
known gambler, where gambling is illegal, will
nonetheless be enforceable. A contract to pay a gambling
debt, however, will not.
A famous example in the United States is Bovard v.
American Horse Enterprises 247 Cal. Rptr. 340 (1988), in
which the California Supreme Court refused to enforce a
contract for payment of promisory notes used for the
purchase of a company that manufactured drug
paraphenalia. |
