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Samuel Veazie, the complainant and appellant, brought a case against Nathaniel L. Williams and Stephen Williams, defendants. The dispute was over an agreement between Samuel Veazie and the two defendants in which they agreed to pay him for his services as a surveyor of land in Maine. However, after he completed his work they refused to pay him what was due under their contract. The Supreme Court found that there had been no breach of contract by either party but rather that both parties were bound by their original agreement with each other so it ordered them to fulfill its terms accordingly. Furthermore, since the court determined that neither party had acted wrongfully or negligently it also denied any damages being awarded to either side from this suit.
In the case of Samuel Veazie v. Nathaniel L. Williams and Stephen Williams, the dissenting opinion was that a contract between two parties should not be voided simply because one party did not have full knowledge of all its terms at the time it was made. The majority had ruled that since Mr. Veazie had been unaware of certain conditions in his agreement with Messrs. Williams when he signed it, those conditions were invalid and could not be enforced against him; however, Justice Baldwin argued that this would set a dangerous precedent by allowing any contract to be easily annulled if either party later claimed they hadn't understood or agreed to some part of it upon signing. He believed contracts should only be voidable for fraud or duress, as these are clear cases where one side has taken advantage of another's ignorance or lack thereof; otherwise, both sides must abide by their original agreement regardless if they fully comprehended every detail at the time they entered into it