A contract is formed between two or more parties.
A contract is formed between two or more parties. In order for a contract to be legally binding there must be offer and acceptance. This simple basis for a contract is not as clear cut as it first appears. In certain circumstances it is often necessary for the two parties to the contract to communicate via post or by other indirect means. This practise gives rise to the problem of whether an acceptance is given when it is posted or when it is received. There is also the issue of whether or not the person posting the acceptance wilfully intended there to be a delay in delivery. The use of electronic mail further ads to the complication as the courts must decide whether or not electronic mail can be classified as instantaneous communication. Firstly, let us examine the postal rule in order to analyse its possible applications to communication by electronic means. As already stated, the two elements of a simple contract are the offer and the acceptance. The acceptance will only have effect when it is given to the offeror in response to his offer. Lord Herschell defines the postal rule as: "Where the circumstances are such that it must have been within the contemplation of the parties that ... the post might be used as a means of communicating the acceptance of an offer, the acceptance is complete as soon as it is posted."1 The postal rule is an exception to the general rule
Establish whether or not there is a contract between Hettie and Barbara.
The first issue to consider in order to establish whether or not there is a contract between Hettie and Barbara is to define a contract. Also, it will be useful to explain the concept of offer and acceptance, which will lead to the conclusion of whether there is a contract between the two parties, Barbara and Hettie for the sale of the grand piano. The standard definition of contract by English lawyers is that a contract is an agreement which is legally enforceable or legally recognized as creating a duty. However, one widely used definition is that in the American Restatement of Contracts: A contract is a promise or a set of promises for the breach of which the law gives a remedy, or the performance of which the law in some way recognises as a duty.1 In other words, a contract is essentially a two-sided bargain which can only be concluded by the action of both parties. An offer is a clear and unambiguous statement of the terms upon which the offeror is willing to contract, should the person or persons to whom the offer is addressed decide to accept. An offer may be made expressly, but it may equally be implied from the offeror's language, or it may be inferred from his conduct. An offer can be terminated before the offeree validly accepts the offer, as long as it is communicated to the offeree. An acceptance is an unqualified assent to the terms of the offer, which must
Law of Contract - Promissory Estoppel
LAW OF CONTRACT - PROMISSORY ESTOPPEL Kajai, a café proprietor hired a dish washing machine from Long for use in the café at a rental of $10 per week. In January 1991, the local council began extensive roadworks outside the café which made it difficult for people to get to the café and Kajai's business was seriously affected. At Kajai's request Long agreed to reduce the rental to $1 per week for 3 months. By the end of the 3 months, the roadworks had been completed but Kajai's café now needed redecorating because of all the dust created by the roadwork. Kajai told Long that he was on the verge of bankruptcy and begged him to leave the rental for the dish washing at $1 per week for a further 6 months. Reluctantly, Long agreed. In June a fire occurred at a rival café across the road from Kajai's and it was forced to close, so that Kajai now enjoys greatly increased business and is making handsome profits. Long on the other hand, is very short of money and needs every penny he can get. Kajai insists that Long is still only entitled to $1 per week rental. Advise Long. ANSWER In advising Long, one must firstly, consider whether there is an existence of a contract, which is an agreement between two parties giving rise to rights and liabilities. From the facts given, there is an existence of a contract for the rental of the dish washing machine at a rent of $10 per
law of contrac unit2,asssisgnment1 3part qeustion
THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LICENSED PARALEGALS 9, UNITY STREET, BRISTOL, BS1 5HH Tel: 0117 927 7077 : Fax: 0117 929 3887 E-mail: [email protected] HIGHER CERTIFICATE IN PARALEGAL STUDIES UNIT 2 - LAW OF CONTRACT ASSIGNMENT No:1 Name.............................................................................................................. Address.......................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................ ...........................................................Post Code............................................. Olive advertised in the "For Sale" column of the Classic Car Journal - "1949 Triumph Roadster. Good condition. 1 year MOT, £13,000". The advertisement gave her address and telephone number. Paul saw the advertisement on Friday night and immediately wrote to Olive at her home address, agreeing to pay the £13,000 requested. He posted the letter on Saturday morning. Quentin also saw the advertisement on Friday evening and telephoned. There was no reply but he left a message on the answering machine agreeing to buy the car for the asking price. Olive, who had gone away for the weekend, returned on Monday morning. She picked up Paul's letter and read it whilst listening to the
contact law
Advise the parties on their legal position. Has a contract come into being and with whom? On Monday at 10.00am Bernice makes an offer of £4,500 and they both agree that if Bernice doesn't hear from Andréa before 9.00pm then the offer has been accepted. In the mean time Andréa is out and Curtis makes an offer which is more than Bernice's. Then David also makes an offer by posting a letter which he misaddresses and arrives late. Andrea accepts Bernice's offer but then when she gets in and sees Curtis's offer she tells Bernice to ignore it. As she wishes to go for Curtis offer. In this scenario I will be discussing offer, acceptance postal rules and instantaneous communications as these are the legal issues raised within this scenario. Bernice seems to have made a clear offer of £4,500 and this offers seems to be communicated to Andrea on Monday morning at 10.00am when Bernice says that she will assume that the offered been accepted unless she hers from Andrea by 9.00pm that evening. Curtis's offer of £4,750 is only communicated on Monday 11:00am however it is communicated to Andrea at 9.30pm when she gets home and sees the note which does seem to be an acceptance of the offer. On Monday 2.15pm David posted a letter to Andrea accepting the offer which she had received on Friday to buy the caravan for £4,750. This letter was not received for four days. Therefore this
Legal Studies Assess Two
Case 1: R v Milat (1996) 87 A Crim R 446). . Author and date of the article. Brett Cox, 03-09-2008. 2. Facts of the case. Ivan Milat was arrested in May 1994 for the murder of seven people. All seven were backpackers, whose bodies were found in Belanglo State Forrest. According to the evidence, Milat murdered his victims between 1989 and 1992. Because all of his victims were backpackers, the media called the case the case of the "backpacker murders". The key reason that Milat was convicted was that one of his potential victims, Paul Onions had gotten away before Milat could kill him, and so Onions was able to identify Milat as his attacker. Milat's trial began in March 1996 and finished four months later in July. 3. Area of law. The area of law in this case is criminal law. McGregor says that criminal law deals with acts or omissions (failures to act) committed against the entire community. Even though a criminal offence may only be against one individual, they have a negative effect on the whole of society. In criminal law cases, the prosecution must prove that the defendant is guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt" which means that there must be no reasonable doubt that the alleged offender did not commit the crime. 4. Court in which the case took place. This case took place in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in 1996. 5. The personnel in the case. The
Ian, an investment broker, wasapproached by Victor who asked him whether he should invest in WonderElectronics Ltd. Ian said " You certainly should, Lord Wellybob is a director.It is a very sound company. It is my view that it will go from strength...
Ian, an investment broker, was approached by Victor who asked him whether he should invest in Wonder Electronics Ltd. Ian said " You certainly should, Lord Wellybob is a director. It is a very sound company. It is my view that it will go from strength to strength. In fact, I own 5,000 shares myself which I can let you have.' Victor then bought the shares for £10,000 . The company went into liquidation a month later. The shares are now worthless. It now turns out (a) that Lord Wellybob resigned from his directorship a week after Ian's statement was made. (b) that Ian's statement regarding the prospects of the company was based on a report in a financial journal which was intended to refer to Wonder Electronics Ltd but gave the name of Wander Electronics by a printing error. Advise Victor; SUGGESTED ANSWER: In advising Victor it has to be determined whether he can sue Ian for misrepresentation on breach of terms of contract. Victor will first be advised whether he can sue for misrepresentation. Misrepresentation has not been defined as a statement of fact which is untrue and which induces the other to enter into the contract. To sue for misrepresentation Victor must prove that:- i) the statement made by Ian were statement of fact ii) and the statement had induced him to enter into the contract. The following 3 statement made by Ion are relevant for an actionable
Postal Acceptance Rule
Postal Acceptance Rule Contract is formed at the time and place an acceptance is communicated to the offeror. An acceptance must correspond to the offer. There is no particular method of acceptance prescribed by law. The appropriate method of acceptance will depend on the fact of each situation. The offerees may find themselves faced with two types of situation. First the offer may dictate a method of acceptance. It may indicate that acceptance should be sent by return fax by a certain date. The second broad category is where there is no indication in the offer of an appropriate method of acceptance. The general rule followed by offeree is that acceptance may be given by the same or an equally expedient method as adopted for the making of the offer. Hence it follows that until the acceptance is received by the offeror the offer may be revoked. In the late 19th century an exception to the general agreement for communication of an acceptance arose in order to avoid the extraordinary and mischievous consequences that would follow if it might be held that the offer might be revoked at any time until the letter accepting it had actually been received. This is the postal acceptance rule. The rule as accepted in Australia is "Where the circumstances are such that it must have been within the contemplation of the parties that, according to the ordinary usages of mankind, the post
Dealing with problems of offer and acceptance.
Contents . Introduction 2 2. Contractual effect of the advertisement 2 3. Offer by telephone by Rob 3 4. Rob's reply by letter 3 5. Sale to Sunita 4 6. Bibliography 5 . Introduction In dealing with problems of offer and acceptance, the Courts have taken a strict approach, stating that there must be clear offer and acceptance in order to create a binding contract. As such, offers must be clear on their terms and capable of acceptance and can only be accepted on terms that mirror the offer, as established in the case of Gibson v Manchester City Council (1979) 1. There are dicta in certain cases, notably in the judgments of Lord Denning MR, which have attempted to mitigate this harsh approach, in the case of Butler Machine Tools Co Ltd v Ex-Cell-o Corporation (England) Ltd (1979)2. However, as Lord Denning's approach in the Court of Appeal was firmly rejected by the House of Lords in Gibson v Manchester City Council (1979)3, it is submitted that these dicta do not represent the current law. However, it is necessary to consider each communication that took place between the parties in this case, to see if the formalities of offer and acceptance have been fulfilled and if so, with whom the contracts exist with. 2. Contractual effect of the advertisement Usually in contract law, advertisements are not considered to be offers, but are invitations to treat Partridge v
Advising a Client : Contract Law
When advising A there are three fundamental questions that must be asked; Is the event capable of frustrating the contract? Are there any rules of law that would render the doctrine of frustration inoperative? What would be the effects if the contract were found frustrated? In addressing the first question it must be recognised that the hallmark of frustration is an event that occurs after the contract is formed that radically alters the foundation or renders it physically or legally impossible to perform. A simple example of this can be found in Taylor v. Caldwell (1863) 3 B. & S. 826 where a contract for hire of a music hall and gardens was found to be frustrated when the music hall burnt down. The object of the contract was ascertained as the hiring of the gardens and music hall for the purpose of using them to stage four 'grand concerts and fetes'. When the hall was destroyed by fire after the contract was formed, the performance was rendered physically impossible. Thus it is essential when considering frustration to identify the object of the contract and then to decide whether the intervening event radically alters this object. On the facts present if the object of the contract is merely to produce computer-processing equipment, as B may argue, then the foundation of the contract is not fundamentally altered and frustration would be difficult to assert. However it
