Contract Law

Chris Turner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134755950
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

Key Facts Key Cases: Contract Law will ensure you grasp the main concepts of your Contract Law module with ease. This book explains in concise and straightforward terms:

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• The rules regarding formation of contracts

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• The contents of a contract

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• Vitiating factors, factors which invalidate an otherwise validly formed contract

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• The rules on discharge of contractual obligations

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• Available remedies

Key Facts Key Cases is the essential series for anyone studying law at LLB, postgraduate and conversion courses and professional courses such as ILEX. The series provides the simplest and most effective way to absorb and retain all of the material essential for passing your exams. Each chapter includes:

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• diagrams at the start of chapters to summarise key points

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• structured headings and numbered points to allow for clear recall of the essential points

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• charts and tables to break down more complex information

Where relevant, chapters also contain a Key Cases section which provides the simplest and most effective way to absorb and memorise essential cases needed for exam success.

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• Essential and leading cases are explained

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• The style, layout and explanations are user friendly

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• Cases are broken down into key components by use of a clear system of symbols for quick and easy visual recognition

1	Fundamentals of contract law

1.1 The origins and functions of contract law

1.1.1 The origins of the law of contract

1	The origins of the law of contract are often associated with the nineteenth-century period of laissez faire economics.
2	Contract law also has origins in the law of the Middle Ages.
3	Modern contract law really begins with the need to differentiate between formal and informal arrangements between parties.
4	Traditionally, all formal agreements (e.g. transfers of land) were under seal; proof of the agreement was the deed itself.
5	Informal agreements might be written but were more commonly oral, with the consequent difficulty of proof.
6	Outside property law, two types of formal agreement were recognised as early as the twelfth century:
	•	Covenant – an agreement to do a specific act (e.g. erect a building on land) and specific performance was possible.
	•	Debt – an agreement to pay a sum of money; the remedy would be the payment of the debt.
7	Informal agreements were called ‘parol’ agreements), having no formal proof of their existence and based on word of honour.
8	The major actions identified in the early law were:
	•	debt (e.g. an informal (oral) agreement to sell goods); the action would generally be for the price of the goods; and
	•	detinue– a claim for a chattel due (e.g. an undelivered horse).
9	By the fourteenth century, the courts had developed the action of assumpsit. This developed out of the tort of trespass and derived from the writ action ‘on the case’ – an adaptation of the writ to specific circumstances of the case. It was, in effect, an action for breach of an informal promise. The assumpsit was the undertaking to carry out the promise.
10	I n the sixteenth century the problems of proof in relation to parol agreements led to the development of a doctrine of consideration.
11	In the nineteenth century many of the basic rules were developed and influenced by laissez faire attitudes.
12	Many basic principles have subsequently been modified by common law once discovered to be unworkable.
13	A move to consumer protection in the late twentieth century, and the influence of membership of the European Union have been responsible for some drastic modifications.

1.1.2 What is a contract?

1	A contract is an agreement between two parties by which both are bound in law and which can therefore be enforced in a court or other equivalent forum.
2	Contracts are distinguished from agreements, which are not binding, and from promises, which are enforceable but unilateral.
	•	To be enforceable, a contractual agreement must be based on mutuality of intent –...