Fletcher v. Peck

Meanwhile, the land companies were re-selling the bargain lands to people and companies who had not been involved in the original scandal. New legal questions arose regarding the status of these new owners and whether or not they were entitled to hold on to the lands which they had bought in good faith. It was a question of whether the sale of the land was tainted to the extent that these new owners were not actually owners at all.

One of these new owners was Robert Fletcher, a citizen of New Hampshire. He had bought some 15,000 acres of Yazoo land for $3,000. The man who sold it to him, Massachusetts citizen John Peck, had put a covenant in the deed, assuring Fletcher that:

[T]he title to the premises as conveyed by the state of Georgia, and finally vested in the said Peck, has been in no way constitutionally or legally impaired by virtue of any subsequent act of any subsequent legislature of the . . . state of Georgia.

In other words, Peck had promised Fletcher that even though the Georgia state legislature had rescinded the terms of the original sale, Peck still had the right to sell the land to Fletcher.

Fletcher was not entirely comfortable with this arrangement. It seemed to him that the Georgia legislature was likely to demand the return of the land. He was angry that Peck had taken money from him for land that he might have to return. As a result, he sued Peck for breach of contract in an attempt to recover the money that he had paid.