Common Law System - Essay Example

Common Law Name Institution Lecturer Date The common law system is set up and established through the court decision. It provides platform for seeking and pursuing justice among members of any state. When one fills his or her rights are violated is able to seek for justice through the court of law where legislation exist, it is interpreted by the court. The judges in the court make independent decision to application of legislation. The common law is flexible to the changing circumstances, cases and situations among the members of given society or nation. Therefore the common law help citizens in any nation to voice up experiences and situations that make them feel unfairly treated to the court of law and they advocate for justice. The common law system is based on concept of stare decisis which translated as stand by decisions and not disturb the undisturbed (Laws 2010). There are decisions in the common law which are called precedent which are used by judges in guiding them in making future decisions on similar cases. The courts are therefore forced to follow and apply the precedents in the various cases presented to them by different people. In case a new dispute arises which is different from the previous ones the judges can form a new precedent which is based on new facts. This gives assurance to members of the society the confidence of finding justice in the courts. Judges in the courts play an important role of ensuring that that the trials are run in a fair manner. When arguments have been presented to the court, as per the laws stipulated the judges must consider on how to treat the evidence it has heard. The judge has to listen and assess all the evidences and arguments presented and make decisions about the facts of the cases. Finally an ultimate verdict is made as to guilty or not guilty and liable or not liable (George 2001). In common law the person who feel that his or her rights have been violated is referred to as plaintiff. On the other hand the person who commits the violation is referred to as defendant. The plaintiff appears before the court of law to give evidence and show how his laws have been violated while the defendant appears before the court to respond to the allegations (Waluchow 2013). In response to the assignment given, I would advise Mr. Manfredi to raise a cause of action. This is because the organization is operating as a person since it has a limited liabity. Therefore the liability of all the employees is limited to the share capital they have in the organization. For all organization with limited organization, the director and all workers in the organization carry on transactions on the behalf of the organization. Therefore any mistake or error created by either of the employees is the responsibility of the organization to respond to it appropriately since the companies` director stroke a contract with Mr. Manfred to sell him the vegetarian cafe on the behalf of the company. There are two major things that are involved in a contract that makes it legally valid. First, the two parties that are in the contract must be in agreement. This situation arises where an offer is made by one party and the other party accepts. The second feature of a contract is that there must be something in exchange, this can be goods, cash or service or in other cases a promise to exchange either of these items for another thing that is of value. Any contract must contain four elements; an offer, acceptance, intention of legal consequence and consideration (Fox 2010). However a contract can only be considered not to be valid if it breaches the country’s legislation, the person entering into a contract with another party does not have the capacity to enter into a contract. Like for HappyHippie director case he did not have the capacity or if the contract that has been made involves some form of deception, duress, undue influence or other categories that makes the contract null and void1. However as from the statement, Elvis Eggplant who is the Managing director of the company that is entering into a contract with the other party had written to the other party expressing clearly that it had given him the authority to discuss the transaction and enter into the contract with the Mr. Manfred on behalf of the organization. For this reason it can be said that the company is bound by the contract because Elvis Eggplant had guaranteed the other party of its obligation under the contract. Here Mr. Manfredi must indicate that the company was bound by the contract which was entered into on its behalf. For this reason the contract became valid and binding. Another reason as to why the company is bound by the contract is that Elvis Eggplant as the managing director of the company was party to the contract when it was first entered because he has limited liability to the company thus he could. However if Elvis Eggplant was not acting as the managing director of the company it would mean that he had no authority to enter into any contract on behalf of the company. As regards the law of contract, a contract can only be valid if it is entered into by a person in authority under either party. In addition under the rules of giving authority it is said that any person who is legally competent of doing act, that includes an incorporated body, may authorize another as their agent to perform that act on their behalf. This means that Elvis Eggplant had been given the authority to enter into a contract on behalf of the company. However this as it is indicated, it was done with ill intention (George 2001). In accordance to the law, if the person does not have the capacity to do so then the contract is considered to be invalid. In this case, though Elvis Eggplant did that in the interest of the company, he would have made the contract without full capacity of the relevant subject matter2. Accordingly, if a person contracted to enter into a contract does so beyond the limit of the task that one is assigned to do under the company’s constitution, then the contract automatically becomes invalid. This is because it will be ruled that Elvis Egglant would have done this in bad faith. In addition, a contract is only said to be valid when there is an element of a criminal act. In this sense forgery is part of a criminal act on contract law (Fox 2010). Also according to the law, a forged account in a contract does not make the contract enforceable against the person to whom it was forged, unless if in this case HappyHeppie Ltd would go ahead and agree to the document or accepts the performance under the terms of agreement in which the contract was made or the account document was forged. At this position the Company would not be bound by the contract making it null and void. However, the person who has forged the document of the contract may be obligated to pay for the costs that will be incurred due to the forgery. A contract can be said to be an agreement that is legally binding between persons or the parties contracting. It has also been defined as a promise or set of promises for the breach of which the common law provides a remedy and the performance of which the common law recognizes as an obligation. All contracts are agreements, but all agreements are not contracts. This is because a contract imposes upon the party’s legally binding obligation (Laws 2010). The court will find out that the plaintiff Mr. Manfredi deserves some damages. This is because he had suspended all his resources, focused a lot of his energy to this investment and expecting much returns to compensate the capital he had spend in purchasing the cafe and only to be disappointed later after realizing that the account records never depicted the true information of the financial transactions. For discharge by performance to be said to have happened, the contracting parties must have fulfilled their respective obligations in an exact and precise way (Fox 2010). In the case of frustration, occurs if fulfillment of the obligation is made impossible, or inessential circumstances for which neither party is at fault. When such case happens, a contract terminates due to frustration, it ends and the involved persons or parties are discharged. In the circumstances of breach, the breach of a contract normally does not result in discharging it; it only results by giving the blameless party a chance to view the contract as existing or repudiated. If the party in the contract treats the contract as existing, it is bound to perform its part but if the party treats it as repudiated, is normally not bound to perform. Breach of contract may be Anticipatory and Actual. The defendant argument does not hold water and it is clear that Mr. Manfredi suffered losses hence it is advisable for him to sue the company3. Bibliography Fox, CM 2010, Working With Contracts: What Law School Doesn't Teach You, 2nd Edition (PLI's Corporate and Securities Law Library), Practising Law Institute (PLI). George, RP 2001, In Defense of Natural Law, Oxford University Press; New Ed edition. Laws, J 2010, The Common Law Constitution (The Hamlyn Lectures), 1st edn, Cambridge University Press. Waluchow, WJ 2013, A Common Law Theory of Judicial Review: The Living Tree (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Law), 1st edn, Cambridge University Press. Read More