Also known as: escambia · exchange · excambium
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
An ancient mercantile contract in which the parties agree to exchange money for money at different locations or times. It functioned as a bill of exchange and allowed one party to pay a sum at one place in consideration of money received at another.
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Eric Espinoza and Eastern Electric entered an escambium under which Eric would pay gold coins in London for a larger sum of silver to be delivered in Antwerp. Both parties believed the silver was of standard fineness when in fact it was debased. Upon discovery the contract became voidable by Eric because the shared error concerned a basic assumption that materially altered the exchange.
Eileen Epstein used proceeds from her premarital jewelry sales to fund an escambium that converted the funds into foreign currency held in her name alone. Under the marital property statute the resulting currency remained her individual property because it was acquired in exchange for other individual assets.
Echo Systems converted Erika Echevarria's escambium notes payable in fluctuating commodity certificates. Erika recovered damages measured by the highest replacement value of the certificates within a reasonable period after the conversion rather than their value on the date of the wrong.
Esme Ellington sued Elite Dynamics for breach of an escambium after the SEC had already obtained a judgment establishing the same fraudulent exchange. The court permitted Esme to use the prior finding offensively because doing so was fair to the defendant under all the circumstances.
Emma Erickson as trustee executed an escambium that exchanged one block of trust land for another parcel of equal value. The transaction was authorized because the governing statute expressly permits a trustee to exchange or otherwise change the character of trust property.
Edith Eberhardt and her partner formed a common law marriage and then completed an escambium that transferred realty from one spouse to the other. The exchange was valid once the three elements of consent, cohabitation, and public holding out were satisfied.
Escambium referred to a mercantile contract for the exchange of money for money at different places or times and was also known as a bill of exchange.
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Cambium reale involved an exchange of land while escambium was limited to money-for-money transactions.
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Early ecclesiastical law often prohibited forms of cambium because they risked usury, but the device was later permitted when it compensated only for trouble and risk.
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…-- Case information - Citation: 41 U.S. 1 (1842) - Judges: concurring: John Catron. Syllabus 1. Bills of exchange — Bona fide holder — State decisions. Action in the circuit court of New York on a bill of exchange, accepted in New York, instituted by the holder, a citizen of Maine. The acceptance and…