Contract Law: Essentials of a Valid Contract and Legal Remedies for Breach

This article discusses the essentials of a valid contract, including offer, acceptance, and consideration. It also covers legal remedies for breach of contract, such as compensatory damages, specific performance, injunction, and liquidated damages. Two case studies are analyzed to understand the rights and responsibilities of parties involved. The first case study concludes that there is no legally enforceable contract, while the second case study concludes that there is a legal contract and the party has rights to enjoy legal remedies.

CONTRACT LAW

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES:...............................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Contract law is a branch which deals with regulates various agreements between the parties
except for the the sale of goods weather it be a movable or immovable. It is an agreement in-
framed and is being enforceable by the court between the parties(DiMassimo, Garrett and
Officer) . As per the common law the very basic essentials to constitute a contract are
Agreement, Contractual intention, and consideration. The intention of court behind this is to
make sure that parties approaching had agreed in bona fide manner as the resulting contract will
be voluntary obligation. Further this essay is going to cover the two case studies and will be
discussing about the rights and responsibilities of the parties.
MAIN BODY
Case study 1- In order to conclude whether any contract has been formed between
Belinda and Avril, it is first important to understand the what are the various constituents which
forms the contract. Any agreement which is formed among the parties having adequate
consideration is Contract. The very basic essentials which are required are the Agreement which
includes the offer by one party and the acceptance by the other. The other requirement is the
intension to form the contract and last is the consideration.
An offer stands to be made when one party expresses his willingness to enter into
contract with the other party on certain specified terms having intention that it will become
binding on both the parties if gets accepted by the same. In order to bound the offerer the
intention of the object of the given offer must be clearly stated in order to make it enforceable.
Acceptance on the other hand is considered a the final assent to the conditions and terms stated
in the offer which has been made(Pargendler, 2017) . Acceptance can be said to be made in
either way it be by words spoken or by conduct, but the nature of the terms specified in the offer
must remain the same. Mere silence to the offer made by one party cannot be considered as an
acceptance. Also while covering these aspects with respect to the given case study it is important
to make a distinction between acceptance and counter offer. In acceptance it is mere accepting all
the terms as given in the offer whereas in case of counter offer it tends to vary the terms of the
original final offer which technically leaves the rejection of the original offer. An offer can be
said to be revoked at any time by the offeree but it should be made before the acceptance an the
proper communication of the same. And if there exists a case where party fails to do the proper
communication the revocation stands ineffective. Furthermore contractual intention is considered

as one of the most crucial part of the essentials of the contract. Is is defined as the genuine
willingness which is intention of the concerned parties to enter into a legally binding agreement
which leads to contract. The said intention should be the motion of both the parties to enter into a
lawfully binding contract. The consideration which is of sufficient and adequate in nature is said
to be a valid consideration in return of the promise. It need not to be an equivalent one with
respect to the promise, it just need to have some value in the eyes of law which court can
consider(Phet, 2019) .
Here by looking to the facts of the case it can be considered that there exists no legal
contract between Avril and Belinda and hence cannot be enforced. At the time when Belinda
replied to the Avril's proposal after seeing the advertisement in the local media that in actual
sense was an invitation to offer by the side of Avril. And when Belinda showed interest and
gave an email to Avril was an offer which was later accepted by the her stating the $750 as the
price. This offer came to end when Belinda replied stating she does not accepts the said price.
Here in this situation when once the offer had already come to an end cannot be enforced by
latter giving the acceptance to the same. Similarly here in this case study an agreement leading to
a contract cannot be enforced as the latter offer by Belinda was an fresh offer which was further
countered offered by Avril stating the new updated price as $900. In this whole scenario no
acceptance was made by the Avril in response to the offer made by Belinda. Here there stands
no legal contract.
Case study 2- The facts of the given case study two are somewhat similar to that of the case
study one, in terms of the Invitation to offer and its acceptance. But here by looking at the facts
one thing which can be asserted for sure is that there stands an agreement leading to contract
between Charlie, Darwash and Eddie. An invitation to offer was said to be made when Charlie
distributed the flyers offering electrical services inviting people to come for the services.
Similarly when Darwash after seeing the flyers contacted Charlie via email, an offer was made
from Darwash to Charlie asking for his electrical services. Further acceptance to the said offer
was made when Charlie responded back saying a contract need to be made and also send Eddie,
who as per Darwash was acting in the capacity of agent to the Charlie in order to inspect the
work needed and the estimated costs for the same. Even though Darwash did not heard anything
from Charlie but after the confirmation of work to start by Monday by Eddie ,in conception of

agent principle relationship between them believes it to be the actual confirmation. Here as the
work has already been done by Eddie of his part, there stands a legal remedy against Darwash in
case if one refuses to the pay the required amount of $3500 for Eddie and $500 for Charlie.
Provisions of contract act provides various sort of legal remedies in favour of the parties to
whom an6y wrong has been done in respect to the agreed contract(Smits, 2017) . Some of the
remedies which Eddie can ask for breach are as follows-
Compensatory damages, is the most usual form of remedy which one asks in lieu for the
breach of contract. The estimation of compensatory damages is based on the actual losses,
which has been occurred to the party(Taylor and Taylor, 2019). These type of damages are
mainly divided into two types as consequential and exception damages. The former are
mentioned as the ordinary damages which are the direct outcome from breach of contract.
Whereas in the case of consequential damages, these are one which flows as a natural
consequences of the breach. This generally comprises of the the losses which a company can
occur due to loss of breach of the said contract. The other available remedy is of specific
performance, where in case of breach court make order to the party who has made loss to the
other party by breaching the contract to perform their part of performance. Generally the
damages of specific performance are asked to apply for the contracts where the loss which has
occurred is of such a nature which cannot be easily replaced or is of unique nature. Other remedy
is of Injunction, which is somewhat similar to the remedy of specific performance. In former the
court order the wrong party to do some specific work whereas in later on court order the wrong
doing party not to do something (WILSON, WILKERSON and MAYOR, 2021).
Other remedy which one can opt for the breach is of Liquidated damages, where the
parties to the agreement prior decides the specific amount as a compensation in case if breach
happens. These sort of damages are generally agreed when parties are of the view that it might
become difficult to estimate the correct amount of loss in respect to the occurred damages.

CONCLUSION
In order to constitutes a valid agreement there are many prior ladders to it which are considered
as the essentials elements of a valid contract such as offer, acceptance and adequate
consideration to it. Also if there occurs a breach of contract by one party causing loss to other
there comes the role of legal remedies which are provided by the provisions of the contract acts.
While going through both the above case studies it can be concluded that it is very basic and
prior necessity for the parties to fulfil all the essentials in order to make any agreement legal
binding and at the same time to fetch the available remedies. Hence after studying the provisions
of contract law and giving a thorough reading to both the case studies it is concluded that there
exists no legally enforceable contract in case study one, whereas in case study two there exist a
legal contract hence the party has rights to enjoys the legal remedy for the same.

REFERENCES:
DiMassimo, F.Q., Garrett, S.M. and Officer, I.C.P., INVITATION TO BID.
Pargendler, M., 2017. Comparative contract law and development: The missing link. Geo. Wash.
L. Rev., 85, p.1717.
Phet, S., 2019. Offer and Acceptance under Laotian Law considering Principles of European
Contract Law: A Comparative Study. Jura: A Pecsi Tudomanyegyetem Allam-es
Jogtudomanyi Karanak tudomanyos lapja, p.449.
Smits, J.M. ed., 2017. Contract law: a comparative introduction. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Taylor, R. and Taylor, D., 2019. Contract Law Directions. Directions.
WILSON, S.B., WILKERSON, M.R. and MAYOR, V., INVITATION TO BID# 07-2021.