Definition
A reward is an offer of recompense — made by a government, public authority, or private individual — promising payment to whoever performs a specified act or achieves a specified result. Common examples include offers for the apprehension of a criminal, the return of lost property, or the disclosure of information leading to an arrest.
Legally, a reward operates as a unilateral contract: the offeror's promise becomes binding when the offeree performs the requested act. No prior negotiation, acceptance by communication, or pre-existing relationship between the parties is required. The person who completes the performance is entitled to the reward; the person who merely contributes information short of full performance may or may not qualify, depending on the terms of the offer.
Two dimensions of reward recur in legal sources:
1. The offer: The promise of recompense, made publicly (by poster, newspaper, oral announcement) or privately (to a named individual), which is revocable before performance but binding once the specified act is completed.
2. The payment: The recompense actually rendered after performance. Bouvier's treats these as distinct — the offer and the payment it generates — a distinction that matters when performance is disputed or partial.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To give something as a recompense; to recompense someone for an act.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To give in return, whether good or evil, though commonly in a good sense; to requite, recompense, repay, or compensate.
The common meaning of reward is broad and morally neutral — one can reward good behavior or, in older usage, requite evil. The legal meaning is narrower: reward is a term of contract law describing a specific mechanism by which a promise of payment is made in advance and becomes enforceable upon performance. The everyday sense carries no implication of offer, performance, or binding obligation.
Core Elements
Because reward operates as a unilateral contract, researchers will encounter these recurring elements in case law and treatise analysis:
Public or communicated offer: The reward must be made known. A private, uncommunicated intention to pay does not create an enforceable offer.
Specificity of the act: The offer must describe a definite act or result (apprehension, information leading to apprehension, return of property). Vague offers generate disputes over whether performance qualifies.
Knowledge of the offer at time of performance: A person who performs the act without knowledge of the reward offer cannot claim it. This is the principal point of legal departure from ordinary moral intuition.
Completion of performance: Partial performance typically does not trigger the reward unless the offer expressly contemplates stages. Anderson's illustrates the line: one who provides information leading to arrest may earn the reward for information but not the separate sum offered for the actual apprehension, unless they performed both.
Acceptance by performance: No communication of acceptance is required. The act itself is both acceptance and consideration.
Why It Matters in Research
Reward is a gateway term into unilateral contract doctrine. Researchers working in 19th and early 20th century sources will find reward cases used as the canonical illustration of unilateral contract formation — often before the phrase "unilateral contract" itself became standardized terminology. Treatises of that era may discuss reward under offer and acceptance without using modern structural vocabulary.
Jurisdictional traps: Whether knowledge of the offer is strictly required for recovery, and whether partial performance (information vs. apprehension) entitles a claimant to any portion of the reward, were contested questions resolved differently across jurisdictions and time periods. Do not assume consistency.
Government rewards introduce a separate track: public rewards offered by statute or executive authority may be governed by specific enabling legislation rather than pure contract principles, and the analysis shifts accordingly. Researchers should confirm whether the reward at issue is purely private, or authorized and constrained by law.
Revocation before performance: Historical sources handle pre-performance revocation differently. Some require that revocation be communicated by the same means as the original offer; others apply general contract revocation rules. This is an active area of doctrinal variation in older case law.
The Burrill entry, which defines reward under the Latin præmium and treats it as simple compensation for services, reflects an older, looser usage. Researchers using pre-19th century sources should be alert to reward appearing in contexts closer to fee or wage than to the modern unilateral contract framework.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (1st and 2nd editions) are in close agreement: a reward is a recompense or premium offered by government or individual for special services, attainments, or acts benefiting the public. The 2nd edition's reference to Kinn v. First Nat. Bank is a useful period anchor for the contract formation question.
Bouvier's provides the most analytically useful entry for research purposes, cleanly distinguishing the offer from the payment and noting that offers may be made to individuals or to the public by poster or newspaper — a structural point relevant to revocation and knowledge questions.
Anderson's is valuable for the partial performance problem: the distinction between earning a reward for information and earning a separate sum for actual apprehension was a live issue in American courts, and Anderson's captures it directly.
Burrill's entry is the outlier. Its definition — compensation or remuneration for services — is broad enough to encompass wages and fees, and does not engage with the offer-and-performance mechanism at all. It reflects an older, pre-unilateral-contract framework and should be used with caution for anything beyond etymology.
Jurisdictional Note
American courts have generally required that the claimant know of the reward offer at the time of performance, though the strictness of this requirement has varied. English authority has not always imposed this requirement with the same rigor. In government-reward contexts, state and federal statutes may displace common law analysis entirely, setting eligibility criteria, payment caps, or administrative procedures that override ordinary contract principles.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Contracts — Rewards and Unilateral Contract Formation (The Law Mind Contracts & Commercial Law Encyclopedia)