Consideration & Substitutes — NextGen Bar practice question

An art collector sells a painting she knows is worth roughly $50,000 to a longtime friend for $100, and both sign a bill of sale reflecting that price. The $100 is actually paid, and nothing suggests fraud, pressure, or a mistake about value. After the collector dies, her heir sues to unwind the sale, arguing that $100 cannot possibly be consideration for so valuable a work and that the transaction was really a disguised gift the estate should be able to reclaim.

Is the $100 sufficient consideration to support the sale?

Option A. Correct answer. Yes, because courts do not weigh the adequacy of bargained-for consideration.Correct
Option B. Incorrect answer. Yes, because the collector delivered the painting before her death.
Option C. Incorrect answer. No, because $100 is grossly disproportionate to the painting's true value.
Option D. Incorrect answer. No, because selling far below market value makes the transfer a gift.

Why

Once consideration exists, courts do not ask whether the exchange was a fair or equal trade — a tiny 'peppercorn' can support a large promise (A). The $100 was genuinely bargained for and paid, so the sale stands. C is the central trap: gross imbalance is not a consideration defect; it may signal unconscionability, fraud, or duress, but the facts rule those out, and imbalance alone never voids a freely made bargain. D wrongly treats a low price as automatically a gift — a low but real price is still an exchange, not a gift, because the buyer paid something the seller sought. B is true but irrelevant: delivery affects whether title passed, not whether consideration existed. The heir is really complaining about a bad deal, and freedom of contract lets people make bad deals.

Why