Case Study on Contract Law 2022

Running Head: CONTRACT LAW CASE STUDY
1
Contract Law Case Study
Student’s Details:

CONTRACT LAW CASE STUDY 2
Introduction
In order to solve any case study, there is a need to attain clarity on what law
is applicable on it. The given case study, involves four parties, where the
couple of Anna and Ben are on one side, and on the other side are two other
parties, James and Joey. The following parts would apply the elements of
contract formation like offer, acceptance, consideration, consent, and
intention of parties. There would also be the applicability of postal rules,
instantaneous communication rule, exclusion clause, and commercial
contracts. In order to decide on the main incident that led to the issues in
case study, negligence would also be touched. This would lead to showing
that a case of breach of contract could be started by James against Ben.
However, Ben has a strong defence in the case successful case of negligence
against James. In context of Joey, the analysis undertaken here would show
that Joey can claim breach of contract owing to pending initiation of contract
on part Ben.
Analysis of case study through application of contract law
In the simplest form, a contract is a promise made, to do something, by
parties of contract. Amongst the different types of contracts, are verbal and
written contracts. As the name depicts, the former involves terms of contract
being exchanged in spoken manner; whilst the latter depicts the terms of
contract being put in writing1. There are also social and commercial
contracts. In legal terms, social contracts do not have any legality. The
commercial contracts, where the parties have clear intention of creating
contracts and getting in legal association are commercial contracts. The
present case study involves a work being offered by Anna and Ben, which is
being shown interest in by James and Joey. Thereby, the present contract is
1 John W. Carter, Elisabeth Peden and Greg Tolhurst,
Contract Law in Australia (LexisNexis
Butterworths, 5th ed, 2007)

CONTRACT LAW CASE STUDY 3
of commercial nature, albeit involving elements of verbal and written
communication.
Essential element: Offer
To create a contract, an offer must be made. This shows that one party is
offering the other party some terms and this open an opportunity for other
party to get in a contract. At this time, one must differentiate it from
invitation to treat. Where a case of invitation to treat is present, the invite
making party does not have to accept the offers they receive, as is case with
any offer2. A controversial stream here is newspaper advertisements.
Carlill v
Carbolic Smoke Ball Company3 dictates them as offer, when they cover
unilateral offer. Applying the present rules to the given case study, one
needs to note that the newspaper advert given by Ben does not cover a
unilateral offer. This is because no price is quoted in this advert, and it
merely “invites” people to send their quotes. Hence, this is a clear case of
invitation to treat. Whatever responses are sent on this invite would be
deemed as an offer, as is done later on by James and Joey. This was done by
James and Joey on different dates by their respective emails. These were the
offers, open for Ben to accept.
Essential element: Acceptance
The second stage toward creation of a legally binding contract is for an offer
to be accepted. Any kind of amendment in the wordings posted in offer is
deemed as a counter offer4. This is where the case study is dynamic. There
was no case of counter offer being drawn when it comes to James-Ben.
However, when it comes to Joey-Ben, there was initially an offer and then a
clear counter offer. The offer was sent on 12 September by Joey, and the
counter offer was sent by Ben “short while later” (after the incident of
2
Partridge v Crittenden [1968] 1 WLR 1204
3
Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Company [1893] 1 QB 256
4 Mark Lunney and Ken Oliphant,
Tort Law: Text and Materials (Oxford University Press, 5th
ed, 2013)