Contract Agreement Judicial

Legal Aspects of project management.

1. Introduction to contract law

Law of contract: The law of contract is the study of legal principles which underlie all contracts,it is not concerned with particular types of contracts and their specialized rules (Koffman and Macconald 2001).

What contract laws do? (Chen -Wishart 2005)

Initially a agreement is formed between two parties, when some disputes between the parties arises over the agreement, then one or both parties initiates the judicial process. Then the judicial applies the rules of the contract law and gives the result. Though the contract law basically stands on the basics of the agreement of the parties, the result is completely based on the process of judicial application of the contract law.

Purpose of contract law: Butterworths states that contract law has many “purposes”, but the central one is to support and to control the million of agreements that collectively make up the “market economy”. (Chiris Turner 2007)

Based on the knowledge of law of contract, Legal advice will be given to the two cases in the assignment. Firstly, Nancy and Andy case, Andy is advised whether Andy is eligible to clam the reward £3000 announced by Nancy for safe return of her dog, which Nancy has refused to give to Andy even after safe return of her dog saying she have never made that offer to him as a individual. Then in Finewines Ltd case, where the company could not fulfill all the customers, supplying there orders, as they don’t hold sufficient stock and Adam is advised whether the disappointed customers might have a valid claim against their company.

2. Nancy and Andy Case

2.1. Brief introduction of the case.

Nancy owns a pet dog called Rombo one day she find it missing then she placed an advertisement in the journal stating “MISSING DOG, OFFER OF REWARD” and she also stated that “ I am offering £3000 for its safe return”. Looking at the advertisement one person named Andy remembered that he saw the similar dog roaming in the nearby park and the next day he caught the dog and returned the dog to Nancy and remembered her about the offer she mentioned in the advertisement, in reply to that she said “stop being so silly, Andy! I have never made the offer to you as an individual” and said him to leave the house.

2.2. Legal issues arising in the case

The main legal issue in the case whether Nancy is subjected to contract with Andy to pay him £3000.

In order to solve the above legal issue we have to checkout the main elements of the contract the case. Let these elements be offer, acceptance and intention to be legally bound.

2.3. Term to be discussed.

Contract

“A contract is an agreement between two parties by which both are bounded in law and which can therefore be enforced in a court or other equivalent forum” (Chirs Turner 2006), The person who places the offer is known as offeror and the person who accept the offer is an offeree. We have two different trems to be known. They are offer and acceptance(accept). This are the two main things in a contract.

One way of classifying contracts is according to whether they are ‘bilateral’ or ‘unilateral’.

Bilateral contract

In bilateral contract a promise by one party is exchanged for the promise of the other party (Duxbury R 1997). Where the both parties are bind to the contract.

Unilateral contract

In unilateral contract one party promise to do something in return for the act of the other party, the act is defined by the party makes the promise (Duxbury R 1997).

From the above definition we know that the case we are dealing (Nancy & Andy) may comes under unilateral contract. Nancy is the party who sets the contract, by makes the promise of offering £3000 for the safe return of the dog. Here safe return of the dog is the act set by Nancy.

Offer

An offer is a legal commitment, a proposal which invites, indeed presupposes, eventual acceptance. (David oughton & Martin Davis 1997). The person who sets the offer is known as offeror and the person who accepts to the offer is known as offeree. Offer may be addressed to one particular person, a group of people or the world at large, as in an offer of a reward(Duxbury R 1997).

In this case the advertisement made by Nancy can be considered as an offer and Nancy as an offeror and Nady is the offeree, the offer is an offer of reward which is addressed to the world at large.

Acceptance

Accpetance may be defined as an unconditional assent, communicated by the offeree to the offeror, to all terms of the offer, made with the intention of accepting (Duxbury R 1997).

Acceptance in unilateral contract: Acceptance of a unilateral offer need not be communicated, because performance is the same as acceptance (Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co.(1893) Turner C (2006)).

Intention to be legally bounded

The court have recognized that some agreements, by there nature, are not intended to be legally binding (Duxbury R 1997). The agreement does not become a binding contract unless the parties have shown, expressly or by implication, that they intended to create legal relations: Rose and Frank v. Crompton Bros.[1923]. (W T Major 1993).

3. Finewines Ltd Case

3.1. Brief introduction of the case

Finewines Ltd is an importer and distributor of fine wines, based in Sunderland, as a part of there sales strategy they have distribted monthly catalogue to there customers containing a list of wines and there prices. One among the list was White Australian wine for £75 per case. Looking at the catalogue ten of their customers had ordered for 100 cases of White Australian wine each, then Finewines Ltd realised that they do not hold that amount of stock to fulfil all the customers, all they have is only 500 cases of that wine.

3.2. Legal issues rising in the case

The main issue is the whether the customers of Finewines Ltd have a valid claim against them.

To solve the above issue we have to find whether the catalogues sent to the customers by Finewines Ltd is on offer or invitation to treaty.