Soderholm v. Kosty

In Soderholm v. Kosty, 177 Misc 2d 403 (Justice Court Chemung Cy., 1998) Village Justice Brockway identified the components of a human relationship which arise from something other than a legal relationship: We know that as a matter of human experience, goods, services and financial advances are frequently rendered between two people not for remuneration but because they value each other's company or because they find it a caring, convenient or rewarding thing to do. The same can be said for most expenses in a "live-in" relationship. Given the usual "give and take" normally associated with cohabitation, and the giving and receiving by both here of love, affection, gifts and the like, it cannot be said that equity and good conscience cry out for fiscal adjustment. Id. at 405-06. These behaviors do not lend themselves to contractual obligations. As Justice Brockway observed: Basic contract law requires that a contract spell out a meaningful exchange of promises, clear in their intent and manner of execution. It is not for courts to fashion a contract where the parties have neglected to do so themselves. In this case, the plaintiff, years after the events, claims that various other sums are due him arising out of the cohabitation of the parties. However, at the time of the expenditures, it was not at all clear or unequivocal that the parties had a "meeting of the minds" as to restitution. Indeed, plaintiff kept expending monies despite Kosty's obvious lack of ability or intent to make reimbursement. Moreover, Kosty monetarily contributed to the relationship in other ways (see supra, at 405) which may have served to offset Soderholm's financial advances. To attempt to put judicial sanction on such vague arrangements and financial exchanges is not conceptually valid and cannot expect judicial enforcement. In short, "no specific dollar amounts were ever specified, no time for performance was ever set and no conditions as to the manner of payment were given, nor was anything ever said about what would happen if the relationship between the parties terminated" (Trimmer v. Van Bomel, supra, at 207). Without more, these other expenditures, surrounded not by clear or third-party "IOU's", but by cohabitation, love, bliss, "somedays" and borrowed cars, do not a contractual debt make. (Id. at 406-07.)