LEGAL ASSIGNMENT

Legal Assignment

Legal Assignment

This paper presents answers to three legal questions pertaining to the law of contracts.

Q1: Contract Law

A distinctive feature of civilian legal systems is the idea, drawn from Roman law, that there exist a number of special or nominate contracts, such as sale, lease, deposit, agency, loan, employment, and so on (about ten to twenty in total, depending on the system). These contracts are subject to the general rules of contract law, but they are also governed by category-specific rules, which are collected under separate headings in civilian codes.

Statutory law builds on these basic principles, setting standards and specifics for commercial contracts involving the sale of goods (Uniform Commercial Code, Article 2 [UCC-2]), contracts involving e-commerce (the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act), negotiable instruments (Uniform Commercial Code, Section 9), and others. In addition to providing remedies for unethical conduct, these statutes are designed to improve communication and efficiency and prevent disagreements by setting standard terms for commercial contracts and providing directions for what should be done if the parties' contract fails to provide for some contingency. For example, under the UCC-2, if commercial parties fail to mention a price for the sale of a good, then as long as they intend to be bound to the contract, a court can imply a “reasonable” price as determined by the local market.

For businesses to thrive, they must be able to rely on commitments. Sometimes, business is successfully concluded merely on a handshake (“my word is my deed”), such that neither party feels the need to verify that the commitment will be enforced by the law should the other party fail to keep his or her word. However, if the commitment is a large one, if the parties are strangers, or even if they are just cautious, either or both of them may want to verify that the agreement will be enforced by a court should something go wrong. Parties need to be free to contract according to their own best interest, but they also need to be free from being obligated unless they specifically intend to be obligated and they understand those obligations. Contract law systems attempt to balance these ethical and practical considerations.

Common Law of Contracts:: Offer,, Acceptance,, and Consideration

Traditionally, in common law—the law derived from centuries of cases decided by English courts and used in 49 of the United States—an enforceable contract requires proof of just three things in addition to the intent to be bound: offer, acceptance, and consideration. An offer must be sufficiently precise and complete such that the other party's merely saying “yes” to that contract means that a contract will be formed. However, if some of the necessary information or terms are missing, then the statement is not an offer. For example, “Would you like to buy six widgets at $12.00 per widget?” constitutes an offer for the sale of six widgets and indicates that if a buyer agrees, then the seller intends to be bound to the resulting ...