QUASI-CONTRACTS -- CONTRACTS UNENFORCEABLE UNDER STATUTE OF FRAUDS -- TEST OF BENEFITS

Defendant orally contracted to buy fifty special type motion picture cameras which plaintiff was to build. Plaintiff had completed ten cameras in whole and forty in part when defendant repudiated, setting up the defense that the contract was void under the California statute of frauds. In an action on the common counts for labor done and materials furnished, the court held, that plaintiff could not recover because defendant had accepted or retained no benefit from which a promise to pay could be implied. Mitchell Camera Corp. v. Fox Film Corp., (Cal.

1936) 59 P. (2d) 127.