THE INTENTION FALLACY IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF TITLE RETAINING CONTRACTS

''Truth", said William James, "lives for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs 'pass', so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass, so long as nobody refuses them." This can also be said of legal principles. In the interpretation and construction of conditional sales and kindred title retaining instruments the courts and lawyers and text writers have assumed that the intention of the parties governs under all circumstances regardless of whether the suit is between the original parties to the contract, or whether the issue involves the rights of third parties. So far as I have been able to discover after careful search, no one has expressly challenged this principle which has passed along from court to court and from case to case, gathering adherents at every step.

That it is sanctioned by the 'weight of authority' can no longer be questioned. In the face of the great array of able judges who have followed this rule of intention it is, perhaps, presumptuous to attempt to discredit it. But I have, on past occasions, before engaging in this research, accepted this same principle as legal tender truth; hence I hope that the self-criticism will palliate the offense.