In Mascioni v. I.B. Miller, Inc. (261 NY 1, 184 N.E. 473 [1933]), the contractor agreed to pay a subcontractor fifty-five cents per cubic foot for erecting concrete walls. The promise to pay contained the proviso "payments to be made as received by the Owner." The Court of Appeals reversed the Appellate Division's holding that this proviso merely fixed the time of payment and did not create a condition precedent. The Court stated: "A provision for the payment of an obligation upon the happening of an event does not become absolute until the happening of an event. Whether the defendant's express promise to pay is construed as a promise to pay if' payment is made by the owner or when' such payment is made, the result must be the same; since, if the event does not befall, or a time coincident with the happening of the event does not arrive, in neither case may performance be exacted.' True, a debt with consequent obligation to pay may exist aside from any express promise to pay. Then a condition annexed to an express promise to pay the debt may render the promise to pay conditional without making the debt subject to the same condition. It must be admitted, however, that a condition annexed to a promise to pay a debt will commonly, upon the true construction of the instrument in which it is contained, extend to the debt itself. There is a difference also between a promise to pay a debt on a certain condition, and a proviso that the debt shall be payable only upon a certain condition; for the latter necessarily renders the debt itself conditional. (Langdell, Summary of the Law of Contracts, 36.) In this case, if there were no express promise to pay a stipulated price for stipulated work, such a promise would be implied. There is, however, an express promise to pay moneys as received from the Owner, and the event upon which that promise would ripen into an absolute, immediate obligation has not occurred. From the express promise to pay upon the happening of an event, an inference may be drawn that the parties did not intend or impliedly agree that payment should be made even if the event does not occur. In many cases, nevertheless, an inference, that an express promise to pay a debt on a certain condition excludes an implication that the debt shall be paid, even though performance of the condition is impossible, would defeat the intention of the parties."(Id. at 4-5)