Legal Action Against Daley Motor Company - Essay Example

Number and Section Response to Inquiry Regarding Legal Action Against Daley Motor Company Dear Mr. Cleese, Thank you for taking the time and to seek legal counsel from Citizen’s Advice Bureau with regards to possible legal action with regards to Daley Motor Company. The law is clear concerning the case you have brought to our attention. However, there are many attributes to this one case and I will attempt to explain them each in their relative complexity within the proceeding paragraphs. However, before I offer specific advice on that topic, I believe it would be beneficial to review the essential elements of a binding legal contract. Firstly, with respect to business contracts there is the issue of offer and acceptance. What this means is that each and every binding legal contract must have these two phases. First an offer must be made and then an agreement/acceptance can be reached. Additionally, only those things which are specifically offered can be accepted. Accordingly, in the written contract if something is not specified it is not offered and in no way is it to be considered part of the written contract. It is during this phase of a business/legal contract that offers and counter offers are discussed and resolved. As a result, special attention should be noted as to the terms and conditions of the agreement as these terms and conditions are the actual mechanisms by which the agreement is to be carried out. Not until this phase is complete, read, agreed upon, and signed can the contract be considered legally binding (and then only if the other terms and conditions affecting the legality of a contract are met). Final acceptance of the contract can be given orally, in writing or discerned through verifiable actions (the oral contract you believe you had with Daley Motor Company will be discussed at further length in this letter). Intention of legal consequences refers to the fact that both parties entering into the legally binding contract are aware that their acceptance means that they will be held legally responsible for executing the terms and conditions of the contract. It is this juncture that proved vitally important to the case in question as you did not take your legal obligation to the terms and conditions of sale seriously by carefully reading before signing the document provided to you. Although it is not always able to be determined whether a person has agreed on a particular item, English law upholds that when a person manifests their consent to a bargain, they are considered beholden to it (Tiersma and Solan 2012). For purposes of your particular instance, any disagreement with the language implied in the written document prepared by Daley Motor Company should necessarily have been discussed, amended, or redacted with the seller prior to any further agreement and prior to signature that denotes agreement and consent with the terms and conditions therein. Consideration is the final stage of legally binding contracts. With respect to the terms and conditions of the contract, consideration refers to the fact that one party will fulfil his/her responsibility by doing something in return for the promise stipulated in the contract. In essence, consideration is what one party gives to another party as an agreed sum for the other’s cooperation. Most of the time this “consideration” is in the form of money; however, it can be anything of value. (Pollock 1921). It should also be noted that for issues relating to fairness are not considered in a court of law. For instance if you severely overplayed for a given good or service after entering a binding legal contract to do so; this burden solely rests on the signatories and is not deemed fraud unless coercion or some other illegal instrument was in use to complete the deal. From the details of the issue you have provided us, it is clear that Arthur Daley Motor Company has at the very least treated you unfairly and at the very worst deliberately swindled you. Firstly, there is the issue of the oral agreement which did not translate to the same agreement once it was put down in writing. Under our legal system verbal agreements are those that take place via telephone, email, or person to person. However, there are certain contracts that must necessarily be made in writing (Marsh 1994). Sadly, among these is the transfer of property (inclusive of automobile sales). Additionally because of the nature of oral/verbal contracts they are difficult to uphold in court because it is oftentimes unclear as to what specifically was agreed upon. All testimony and evidence will come in the form of witnesses and recollection. The issue with this part of your inquiry is that you failed to make note of this discrepancy by choosing not to look over/review the documentation provided you before signing. Although oral contracts have been proven in court to be legally binding as written contracts, it is necessary to have witnesses and other evidence of what these oral contracts provided for otherwise it is most probably that no solution can be found in a court of law. Additionally, even if you are able to provide a witness to the acceptance of the oral contract, it is most likely that since the contract was entered into at Daley Motor Company, the other side will also be able to provide their own witness(es) and the case will become one word against another. Furthermore, you entered into yet another oral contract with George, the mechanic, in encouraging him to reduce the price of the automobile in light of the fact that the contract you believed you had entered into was not being honoured. This provides yet another layer of confusion to the overall legal outlook on the case. Should you indeed wish to pursue legal action with regards to this, the defendant will likely argue that because you agreed to a reduced price for the automobile in question, any misgivings you might have harboured are null and void as the discounted price will attest to your acceptance of the clear and present terms of purchase through this oral contract. Thirdly, you made another apparent error in judgement by agreeing to pay in cash for the automobile. In so doing, there is no recourse for you, the buyer, to challenge the transaction as unethical or illegal with your bank or credit card company because with cash the transaction cannot be put on hold or challenged at the institutional level. In the future I would strongly advise that for such purchases you make them via check or credit card as in such cases you will have some type of immediate financial recourse for such unscrupulous businessmen. Although you had already given a 250 pound deposit on the car, it is far less of a sum than the full price that you paid to the mechanic upon purchase of the vehicle. Lastly, the cost of pursuing legal action, paying attorney fees et al for a sum less than 10,000 pounds is unlikely to yield a satisfactory net monetary benefit (Pole 2010). Furthermore, the only reason that a client might wish to pursue a case of this type, notwithstanding the dangers of the implied net monetary loss, would be from a standpoint of holding Daley Motor Company accountable for their plainly unscrupulous business methodology. Lastly, there is one further legal option that I can offer you at the current time. If you believe that something illegal has happened with regards to the MOT/Road Tax issue, I will be more than happy to offer my services to you by drafting and sending a letter to Daley Motor Company saying that I will be representing you in this case and with specific mention of the MOT/Road Tax issue. It is possible that the letter alone will be enough to encourage cooperation from Daley Motor Company and you might yet receive a satisfactory outcome. Even though they have shown no cooperation with you, a private buyer, with regards to attempting to rectify your concerns, the firm might be more amendable to reconciliation if faced with a legal challenge regarding their unscrupulous practices. If they are put on notice that there may be legal action (regardless of your intent), they might be much more willing to comply with your prior demands which you had assumed were spoken to with regards to the written agreement you signed (Hogg 2011). In many cases, mediation alone is enough to satisfactorily solve the problem prior to any legal action needing to take place. At this time, I believe that mediation between both parties would be the most reasonable course to pursue given the particular nature and complexities of this case. Although you have done an exceptional job explaining the dates times and factors of this case, I would ask that you provide me with the actual signed agreement that my team might review it prior to making a final determination with regards to this case. It is possible that some further illegality has taken place within the signed agreement provided to you by Mr Daley of Daley Motor Company. For this purpose, I am desirous to see the original as any type of illegality will relate to the legal purpose clause of English law. This legal purpose clause relates to the fact that if a contract is made legally binding that has as any part of its scope some type of illegal and/or criminal activity noted therein, it is immediately rendered null and void for purposes of legal interpretation. If any forgery, tax fraud, or other type of financial illegality has taken place with regards to your MOT/road tax documentation then not only will you have a legitimate legal case but the document which you hastily signed and now find yourself under the full weight of will be void and of no merit. Furthermore, there is a possibility that the contract was not correctly written according to the letter of the law by Daley Motor Company. This fact alone is reason for official legal review of the original document as Daley Motor Company may have therein represented even greater unscrupulous/illegal practices or may have left incriminating evidence with regards to the MOT/road tax issue. In this way our team will not be able to make a further determination until such a time as they are able to review the original contract in its entirety. Lastly, it is my belief as a professional that if Daley Motor Company was ready and able to wilfully deceive you to the extent you have manifested to me, there is a high probability that they have been unscrupulous in their legal documentation as well. Thank you for your consideration and your time and I look forward to hearing back from you with regards to how I can provide further legal assistance with regards to this matter and any further legal concerns/questions you might have in the future. Warm Regards, Bibliography Hogg, M. (2011) Promises and Contract Law : Comparative Perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kaye, P. (1993) The New Private International Law of Contract of the European Community: Implementation of the EEC's Contractual Obligations Convention in England and Wales. Brookfield: University of Vermont. Marsh, P. (1994) Comparative Contract Law. Hampshire: University of Vermont. Pole, J. (2010) Contract & Consent : Representation and the Jury in Legal History. Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press. Pollock, F. (1921) Principles of Contract in the Law of England. London: Stevens and Sons. Tiersma, P. and Solan, L. (2012) The Oxford Handbook of Language and Law. New York: Oxford University Press. Legal Cases Consulted Fisher v Bell [1961] Heilbut, Symons & Co v Buckleton [1913] Smith v Hughes (1871) Word count in body of essay (not inclusive of works cited or title page = 1810 Read More