Sarah Alverson 334132 alversons mail missouri edu Introduction to Business Law Lesson 3 Progress Evaluation 3 1 State the four requirements for a valid contract with a detailed description of each As quoted from text 1 Agreement An agreement to form a contract includes and offer and acceptance One party must offer to enter into a legal agreement and another party must accept the terms of the offer 2 Consideration Any promises made by the parties to the contract must be supported by legally sufficient and bargained for consideration something of value received or promised such as money to convince a person to make a deal 3 Contractual capacity Both parties entering into the contract must have the contractual capacity to do so the law must recognize them as possessing characteristics that qualify them as competent parties 4 Legality The contracts purpose must be to accomplish some goal that is legal and not against public policy 3 2 Andy is suing the trustee of his father s estate In his father s trust every child will receive 10 000 if they graduate from high school Andy who is a scholar and scored in the 99th percentile on his college admission test took the GED General Equivalency Diploma after his junior year in high school was given early entrance into college and the next year enrolled at State University The trustee claims that Andy never graduated from high school while Andy believes that he has completed the requirement set out in the trust Imagine you are Andy s lawyer how would you argue in Andy s behalf and what rules of construction would you use to justify your opinion Assume graduate is an ordinary term which a judge may either find as clear or ambiguous Define each rule as you believe could be helpful then make your argument If I was Andy s lawyer and had to argue on his behalf I would first use the Conflict of Terms under the Rules of Construction The reason why I would use this is because when Andy s father wrote his will the whole purpose of having this contract was to ensure that Andy would finish high school and go onto college if that was his will to do so If the term graduate is seen as ambiguous by the judge then the primary rule should be used Andy took the tests required to obtain his GED not because he wanted to get out of finishing high school but rather because he wanted to start college early and didn t want to wait one more year for the actual graduation His father did not state in the will how his children had to graduate high school just said after they graduated 3 3 Name describe and give examples of the five types of non offers discussed in the Chapter 11 content An expression of opinion is a non offer it is a prediction or a general quality about an item An example of this is a contractor s estimate on your house this is not a bid it is just what they think it will cost A statement of intention is something that someone may do in the future An example of this is when a landlord tells you that they may put the house up for sale That is not a fact as you do not know if they are really going to put the house up for sale or not A preliminary negotiation is a general discussion or inquiry about potential contract terms Telling someone that you are interested in looking at their call that is for sale does not mean that you will actually buy it Advertisements are also not offers This includes catalogs and price lists because they can cause multiple acceptances Putting your car on craigslist and listing it for 5 000 and getting calls or emails about it from 20 different people does not enter you into a contract with all of these people Last auctions are not offers unless they are advertised without reserve The owner of an item that is being auctioned may choose to withdraw that item at any time during the auction If a person thinks their item is worth more than the lowest bid they can withdraw the item 3 4 Smith is frustrated with his new 10 000 lawn tractor After he hits himself in the eye with a wrench while trying to repair the mower s height adjustment he shouts If anyone will give me ten bucks for this piece of junk I ll take it Jones Smith s next door neighbor says I accept Thank you very much State the applicable rules of law and tell why there is a contract or why not This is not a contract because it does not meet the requirements of a valid offer One of the requirements for a valid offer is the person must be serious and objective intention to be bound Due to Smith being in an angry state it would not be binding on the offer Second the offer must have names of the parties description of the goods or services under contract the quality the price and any information important about delivery Without this the contract is not binding and may not be accepted The offer must be communicated to the buyer Due to Jones just overhearing Smith s conversation during his frustration Smith never communicated with Jones about an offer In order for it to be valid the offer would need to be hand delivered or mailed to be an active form of communication 3 5 Dana goes to Smooth s garage sale and Smooth orally offers to sell a Specialized Hard Rock mountain bike to Dana for 50 Dana knows the bike is worth at least 150 so she asks Smooth if he ll hold the offer open for an hour while she gets her brother who is in need of a bike Dana comes back a half hour later and when Smooth sees her coming he yells I revoke Dana shouts back Oh no you don t I ve got another half hour and I accept Is there a contract State the applicable rules of law and tell why there is a contract or why not This is not a contract because it is a verbal acceptance which is not a binding offer When Smooth agrees to hold the offer open for the bike for 50 for one hour and Dana is back within 30 minutes Smooth is able and had the right to revoke the prior acceptance because the offer was not made in writing 3 6 Dana mails an offer to Sean on June 15 asking him to paint her house for 3 000 with Sean to furnish the paint Dana changes her mind though and mails a revocation on the 16th Sean mails an acceptance to Dana on June 17th then goes to the paint store to buy the paint On the 18th Sean receives Dana s revocation On the 19th Dana receives Sean s acceptance Sean insists there is a contract Dana insists there is not Who s right According to …
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