Julia and Steven Law Situation - Assignment Example

Unit name: Given name: . Surname: Student number: Email: Assignment title: Date submitted: Student’s comment to tutor: N/G PART A QUESTION 1 STEP 1: The legal case involves Julia who owns an antique store in Victoria Park, and Steven, who was looking for a present for his girlfriend. This case is under the law of contract .A contract is an agreement between two or more parties which is enforceable by law (Robert &Jeffrey, 2002) Contracts can be oral or written. For a contract to legally enforceable the following should observed as stipulated by the law; The parties to the contract must be of legal age of at least 18 year. This is the legal contractual age in Australia The parties in the contract must act freely without any duress and exhibit intentions to be bound by the contract. The contract must be enforceable, that is, the terms and conditions expressed in the contract must be legally acceptable and should not involve unlawful acts on both parties An agreement between the parties to the contract, which may be reached through complex negotiations or through acceptance of the original terms, expressed in the contract. Considerations, which may be in form of money or any other form agreed by the parties. Consideration is anything given, done, promised to be done or given by a party in the contract. STEP 2: For an agreement to be an enforceable contract (David, 1971), there must be; An offer made by the offerer, which expires after a specific set time. The offerer has the right to withdraw the offer any moment even before the time set for the offer has expired. The offer may also be deemed to have lapsed if the offerer within the time limits of the original offer makes another offer (counter offer). Acceptance made by the offeree, and this should be made before the lapse of the time set for the offer to expire. This acceptance must be fully expressed by the offeree so that an agreement is reached. Agreement or concession, where by the offerer and the offeree agrees to the terms and conditions set out in the offer and after the agreement, Consideration, which Promises to do or give something in exchange for the commodity or service in the offer. Dodd’s v Dickinson, the defendant offered to sell to the plaintiff on Wednesday 10/06/1874 and the offer was to remain up to Friday 12 at 9.00 am. The defendant sold the house to a third party though the plaintiff had purported to agree to the original offer by 9.00 am Friday. It was held that the parties had no agreement between them and hence there was no case to answer. A similar case, Ruoutledge v. Grant, where the defendant’s offer was to remain open for 6 weeks but he revoked or withdrew it after 4 weeks, similarly it was held that there was no agreement between the parties hence no case to answer (Iain, 2007). STEP 3: In this case, Julia made an offer to sell an antique to Steven for $200, which would be valid until 10am the following morning; she later sold the antique to Samantha at $230. According to the facts of this case and basing the arguments on earlier rulings there was no agreement between Julia and Steven. Steven did not agree to the terms of the offer as offered by Julia the moment the offer was made since he only promised to think about the offer. Though Steven sent a message to Julia to express his acceptance to the offer the following day, Julia did not see the message until after she had sold the item and hence there was no agreement between Julia and Steven. By agreeing to sell the antique to Samantha at $230, Julia had in reality revoked the earlier offer she had made to Steven. STEP 4: In conclusion, Steven has no case against Julia since Julia being the offerer had the right to revoke any offer she had made even if the duration of the offer had not lapsed (Hugh, 1990). The notice of revocation was communicated to Steven and even if Julia had promised to keep the offer open until the 10.AM the following day, she was under no legal obligation to sell the antique to Steven, Hitherto, Steven had not accepted the offer (since his message of acceptance had not been received by Julia) and therefore no agreement existed between the two parties. List of cases referred to Dodd’s v Dickinson Ruoutledge v. Grant QUESTION 2 STEP 1: The case involves Annette, a tennis champion and Paul’s Racquet Restringing. This case falls under the law of contract whereby Annette saw an advertisement by Paul’s Racquet Restringing, and sought to enter to a contract with Paul’s Racquet Restringing Company. STEP 2: This case includes warranties and conditions which governs contracts. Conditions are those fundamental terms and principles, which must be included in the contract, failure to which the wronged party may reject the contract and claim damages for the loss caused by breach of the contract by the offender. Warranties are of lesser importance and their non-inclusion to the contract may not lead to termination of the contract by the aggrieved party nor constitute claims of damages due to breach of contracts (Patrick, 1975). Terms can be part of contracts through written or expressed agreement; some terms are part of a contract since they have been legally put into the contract by the existing law. Other conditions are placed in the contract as per the nature of common law. All parties to a contract must cooperate and act reasonably, so that all parties to the contract may benefit from the contract. All parties to a contract must act in good faith thereby use the contractual powers honestly and reasonably, in this case it seems that Paul’s Racquet Restringing is not acting in good faith (Rick, 1983) STEP 3: In the case between Annette and Paul’s Racquet Restringing, the terms for the contract were expressed in writing. This was a disclaimer exempting Paul’s Racquet Restringing company of all liability caused by the negligence of its employees or any liability arising from the use of defective materials or defective work on the part of Paul’s Racquet Restringing. Paul’s Racquet Restringing had stated all the conditions before entering into a contract with Annette and the company would have relied on the exclusion clause if it was any of its employees who had restrung the racquet since the disclaimer in the contract had exempted the company of any liability on loss from use of wrong material, and also against liability due to loss arising from poor workmanship by any of the employee. However, in this case, the work was delegated to a third party, who was not covered by the disclaimer and hence the company was liable (Patrick, 1975). Paul’s Racquet Restringing was also bound by universal terms set by common law but In this case Paul’s Racquet Restringing is not cooperating and is not acting reasonably since one of the employee gave his son who was not an employee to repair Annette’s racquet. The son used the wrong strings for the racquet leading to loss by Annette. This is against the terms set by facts. STEP 4: In conclusion, Paul’s Racquet Restringing cannot rely on the exclusion clause in the contract since the implied condition was that the company would restring Annette racquets using g good quality material. In real sense, the company did not the restring the racquets, but rather delegated the work to a third party (a son of one of the employee who was not an employee of the company). The third party used the wrong material for restringing the racquets, a contravention of the conditions implied in the contract Since the work was delegated to a third party and wrong material was, company is liable for a breach of contract entered with Annette. Annette can therefore sue the company for negligence and claim for damages (Andrew, 1975). PART B YES; if I were the judge of the District Court of Western Australia, I would follow the precedents of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria, because a decision made by several judges may not have an element of bias and given that, there was unanimous, decision arrived at implying that the judges agreed on common thing. NO; on the other hand, I would not follow a strong decision of the Supreme Court of Singapore on the point of law. Application of law may vary across jurisdictions and each geographical region may have its own law that governs it. Therefore, precedents from the Supreme Court of Singapore may not be so appropriate given that the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria can reach at the decision unanimously. WORK CITED Andrew Robertson, ‘The Limits of Voluntariness in Contract’. Melbourne: University Law Review 179, 180–1, 1975. Print Hugh Collins, The Law of Contract, ‘The Significance of Contract Theory’58 University of Cincinnati Law Review 1283, 1296. 1990. Print Iain Ramsay, ‘Consumer Law and Policy: Text and Materials on Regulating Consumer Markets, 2nd ed, 61, 2007. Print John N Adams and Roger Brownsword, ‘The Ideologies of Contract’ 7 Legal Studies 205, 206– 10. 1983. Print Patrick Atiyah. The Rise and Fall of Freedom of Contract, chs 10–15. Melbourne: University Law Review, 1975. Print Rick Bigwood, Exploitative Contracts, ch 3. New York: University Law Review. 2003. Print Robert A Hillman and Jeffrey J Rachlinski, ‘Standard-Form Contracting in the Electronic Age’ New York: University Law Review, 2002; 77. Print. W David Slawson, ‘Standard Form Contracts and Democratic Control of Lawmaking Power’ 84 Harvard Law Review 529, 1971. Print. Read More