BUL 3310 Final Exam Review Contracts 1 Definition a A legally enforceable agreement b Agreements i Contracts K symbol for contract ii Contracts are a subset or a special type of agreement Must be legally enforceable iii Means that you can go to court to enforce the contract if the other party does not do what they said they would do 1 Court does not enforce a social agreement because its an everyday Essentials of a Contract 1 Agreement Manifestation of mutual assent incident a Demonstration of an agreement between two people but how do you show this WORDS oral or writing i Objective theory of contracts Meeting of the Minds 1 Can give up their rights Pre nuptial post nuptial contracts ii The seller promises the horse for 2200 dollars and the buyer accepts Agreement When the buyer sends the 2200 the seller claims that he meant to say 2500 but since the paper says 2200 the seller cannot change the price Contractual 2 Obligation legal duty Types of Contracts 1 Express agreement manifested in words oral or written a A lease that was signed for housing 2 Implied agreement manifested by conduct e g dental appointment a All terms are impliedly reasonable If you don t agree sample competitors prices i ii Dentist Fills Cavity Patient Pays 500 iii Seems too expensive so you can challenge the price if others show less expensive prices 3 Unilateral promises for an act a I promise to do this for you if you do this for me Ill pay you if you find my lost dog i 4 Bilateral promise for a promise a I promise to sell your house so pay me now They don t pay because you cant promise to promise something instead they promise to pay you when you complete the action 5 Executory not yet performed a I pay you 500 wk if you help me on my project Not yet performed 6 Executed completely performed a Above project is completed so contract has been executed Elements of a Valid Contract 1 Mutual Assent Offer and Acceptance a Agreement between two people i ii I promise to sell you my boat for 5000 I accept and will pay you 5000 a The bargained for exchange b c Must be an exchange and must be bargained for Both sides are doing something for Ill give this to you if you give that to me 2 Consideration the other 3 Capacity a Incapacity i We assume that you make a contract so you have the capacity 1 Old enough Infant 2 Sane enough Insane 3 Sober enough Intoxicated 4 Legality between a drug dealer Offer Essential Elements a Contract has to be legal in order to be enforceable court wont accept a contract 1 A promise to render a stated performance in return for the requested counter performance Ill do this for you if you do that for me a Promissory language requirement I promise to buy I will buy I hereby undertake the obligation to buy i ii iii b Effect of equivocal language i ii iii I am thinking about buying I am considering buying I am contemplating buying 2 Essential terms must be certain a Depends on the circumstance but what is essential i Identity of buyer and seller the subject matter etc b Avoid ambiguous language i Stay away from vague ambiguous terms like some 3 Promise must be communicated under circumstances which manifest present serious contractual intent a Must tell somebody that there is an offer b Must be serious and cannot be joking around i EX We ll pay 5 per year for the period between this year 1980 and the year of an event depicted on a t shirt 1 1980 1969 Woodstock 11 years or 55 2 1980 1215 Magna Carta 765 years or 3825 Termination of Offer 1 Expiration of time specified a If no time specified offer terminates after a reasonable time base on totality of circumstances i Must understand all factors in order to determine what a reasonable time is ii Can say Must receive acceptance iii More specific you are the better That s why you set a deadline 2 Rejection Express refusal Deny counter offer Give another offer price conditional acceptance Accept if a Done by Offeree Person receiving offer b Rejection is effective when received by offeror 3 Revocation a Offer is revocable at any time before acceptance b Revocation is effective when received by offeree i Must tell me by X day 1 Can change their mind and pull back the offer since you haven t 4 Opinion Contracts accepted offer at any time c Option K a Seller Sell Greenacre for 25 000 Buyer Offer ends 4 30 14 b Even though he says they have until the date above the seller can still revoke the i Seller will keep offer open to him no matter what if he pays 1000 which can later be applied to the purchase price but is not refundable if he denies the offer 5 Death Insanity of Offeror or Offeree 6 Supervening Illegality a law is enacated making the offer illegal a We don t want to trade with that country so the offer made between two countries is illegal now and we can t trade make contract 7 Destruction of Subject Matter a Crash the car that they were selling Acceptance 1 Who may accept offer a Only party to whom offer made i Can t jump in to buy someone else s offer ii If offer made to public 1st person to act gets it 2 Conformity acceptance must conform to offer Mirror image rule a If you accept you must give them whatever they want 3 Conduct as acceptance a Cashing depositing check i Plumber provides services w bill of 500 ii You send him 200 saying that you only believe is service to be worth this much If he deposits the money then he is accepting the terms iii b Acceptance of document implies acceptance of terms on the document i Purchase plane ticket means you accept terms and agreements c Silence does not generally constitute acceptance i Unless otherwise stated ii Sent unsolicited merchandise to a consumer is considered a gift Reality of Consent 1 Central Issue was acceptance of K offer real and voluntary i e was there real consent 2 Consent may be vitiated by a Misrepresentation Misstatement or omission of material fact justifiably relied upon causing injury i You bought the car rolled back and did not know ii Tells you something nor true and you lose money b Fraud Intentional Misrepresentation c Duress Wrongful threat or act which forces a person into a K i Sign this or I ll kill your mom d Undue Influence Unfair advantage taken by superior party in a fiduciary relationship i Husband Wife ii Lawyer Client iii Someone knows more about something than the other so uses knowledge and relationship to get trade e Mistake i Mutual mistake of fact remedy available 1 Both messed up so remedies are available 2 Survey land after sale and find out that there
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