Statute of Frauds
- Aryav Sharma
- 9 hours ago
- 2 min read
Just a quick heads up for anyone who didn't notice, the last blog was a short story and can be viewed there. Also, this is going to be a shorter blog due to unforeseen circumstances not allowing me to delve as deep as usual into this topic.
In one of my previous blogs I addressed contractual law and what certain laws regulate and define contracts. One of these several important regulations is the statute of frauds. Nearly essential to every contract, the statute of frauds has helped several cases and is just as important as ever to understand.
Statute of frauds is not a term, but rather an idea that helps ‘officiciate’ contracts and ensures void ones are not fulfilled. Cornell Law School defines statute of frauds by stating contracts where the statute of frauds applies most commonly to the transaction of land and/or contracts that tend to take a long time to be fulfilled.
On a state government level, The 194th General Court Of The Commonwealth of Massachusetts (General Law Part 1 Title XV Chapter 106 Article 2) also outlines what laws define a contract and enforces the statute of fraud. Primarily, contracts that involve money values of $500 or more are only enforceable if in writing. If not, the agreement never existed in the eyes of the law. In addition, the receiving party of the contract must have sufficient time to understand the agreements of a contract before signing to it. Finally, if a contract is not written down by others and does not involve specific factors, it can still potentially be enforceable.
An example of a case where the statute of frauds was in involved was Kossick v. United Fruit in 1961. The background of the case was an injury occurred on a ship where the injured was entitled to cure. The injured requested “private treatment at responders expense” from the responders, however the responder denied but promised to take all responsibility for poor care at Public Service Hospital. The injured had gotten injured again due to poor care at public hospital and had attempted to put responsibility on responder. The opinion of the court was “Dismissal was on the ground that the allegations of the complaint are deficient by reason of the New York Statute of Frauds.” In other words, the statute of frauds had deemed this contract void.
In short and extremely brief, that's the statute of frauds.
“Statute of frauds.” Legal Information Institute, Accessed March 4 2026, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/statute_of_frauds.
1 G. L. c. 106, §2-201
Kossick v. United Fruit, 365 U.S. 731 (1961)
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