Key Cases: Contract Law

Table of cases
Chapter 1 Formation of a contract
1.1 Offer
1.1.1 The character of an offer
1.1.2 Communication of offers
1.1.3 Revocation of offers
1.1.4 Termination of offers
1.2 Acceptance
1.2.1 The basic rules of acceptance
1.2.2 The aEUR?battle of the formsaEUR (TM)
1.2.3 Communication of the acceptance
1.3 Consideration
1.3.1 Defining consideration
1.3.2 Sufficiency and adequacy of consideration
1.3.3 Past consideration
1.3.4 Consideration passing from both sides
1.3.5 Performance of existing duties
1.3.6 Pinnel's Pule and promissory estoppel
1.4 Intention to create legal relations
1.4.1 Social and domestic arrangements
1.4.2 Commercial and business dealings
Chapter 2 Capacity
2.1 Corporations and capacity
2.2 Capacity and minoraEUR (TM)s contracts
Chapter 3 Third party rights and privity of contract
3.1 The basic rule and its effects
3.2 Exceptions to the strict rule
Chapter 4 The contents of a contract
4.1 Representations
4.2 Terms
4.2.1 Incorporating express terms into the contract
4.2.2 The 'parol evidence rule'
4.2.3 Terms implied by fact
4.2.4 Terms implied by common law
4.2.5 Terms implied by statute
4.2.6 The relative significance of terms
4.2.7 How judges construe terms
4.3 Judicial and statutory control of exclusion clauses
4.3.1 Incorporation of exclusion clauses
4.3.2 Construction of the contract
4.3.3 Other limitations on the use of exclusion clauses
4.3.4 The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977
4.3.5 The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts
Regulations 1999
Chapter 5 Vitiating factors
5.1 Misrepresentation
5.1.1 'Misrepresentation' defined
5.1.2 Classes of misrepresentation and their remedies
5.1.3 Equity and misrepresentation
5.1.4 Non-disclosure amounting to misrepresentation
5.2 Mistake
5.2.1 The classes of mistake
5.2.2 Mistake and equity
5.2.3 Non est factum
5.3 Duress, economic duress, and undue influence
5.3.1 Duress
5.3.2 Economic duress
5.3.3 Undue influence
5.4 Illegality
5.4.1 Contracts illegal by statute
5.4.2 Contracts void at common law
5.4.3 Contracts illegal at common law
5.4.4 Consequences of contract being declared void
5.4.5 Consequences of contract being declared illegal
Chapter 6 Discharge of a contract
6.1 Discharge by performance
6.1.1 The strict rule of performance
6.1.2 Ways of avoiding the strict rule
6.2 Discharge by agreement
6.3 Discharge by frustration
6.3.1 The purpose and development of the doctrine
6.3.2 The different types of frustrating events
6.3.3 The limitations on the doctrine of frustration
6.3.4 The common law effects of frustration
6.3.5 The Law Reform (Frustrated Contracts) Act 1943
6.4 Discharge by breach
6.4.1 The different types of breach
6.4.2 The consequences of breach
Chapter 7 Remedies
7.1 Unliquidated damages
7.1.1 Tests of causation and remoteness of damage
7.1.2 The bases of assessment
7.1.3 The duty to mitigate
7.1.4 The aEUR?mental distressaEUR (TM) cases
7.2 Liquidated damage clauses
7.3 Claims for quantum meruit
7.4 Equitable remedies
7.4.1 Specific performance
7.4.2 Injunctions
7.4.3 Rescission
7.4.4 Rectification of a document
Index