CONSIDERATION

The Doctrine of Consideration



The Doctrine of Consideration

Introduction

The law makes it obvious and clear that before a promisor is getting bind to a contract, his or her promise must be supported by the consideration. However, the law also says that a promisor who is already bound to perform a task, in accordance with the law, his promise does not come under the favorable consideration.

Contract is a word, which characterizes the intention and expectation of parties to be bound under it at the time of its creation. The law of the contract dedicates itself to identifying the outcomes of situations where a promisor is unable to perform his or her promise (Kotz and Flessner, 1997).

There is a belief of the fact that not every promise is bound to be fulfilled by the promisor, according to the law. This is the situation where the dispute resolution part of the courts comes in to play. These circumstances are usually in the context of employment disputes, and not that much in the commercial context. The best example of this can be of the contractual liability, even though the intentions are there to create the legal relations. This situation makes the authority of the doctrine of consideration even stronger. This also, sometimes, leaves no choice for the courts but to approach the consideration over the legal thoughts. There is a concept of donative promises in the law, whereby such promises are only for private grounds, and breach of such promises only faces moral sanctions. However, the employment law suggests that such consideration comes under the division of damage it causes if the promise is not fulfilled.

The English employment law has not developed a satisfactory condition for the consideration of a promise. The consideration is not considered to be the prevailing confirmation for a contract. This research will examine the role of consideration in the contract, its criticisms, the requirements for consideration, and to identify whether the existence of consideration in English Contract Law is justifiable or not (Kotz and Flessner, 1997).

Definition of Consideration

A consideration, in terms of English law, explains the notion of each party be benefitted from the contract by receiving something of value. The values, however, are considered to be the right, interest, profit, or benefit given by one party to prevent from any loss suffered by the other, which supports the concept of exchanging mutual benefits. In other words, the promise must be bound with something in return for it, to fulfill the criteria of the contract. The return must be in the form of doing any act in return, or by refraining to do some act in return of the promise. This further brings the concept of bargaining principle in to consideration. The bargaining principle will be discussed later, as the paper will first highlight the criticisms the consideration has faced for its role in enforcing a contract (Gordley and Mehren, 2006).

The Critique of the Traditional View

A famous professor of law, Atiyah, have argued that the courts have never tried making the ...