Contract Law: Analysis of Offer, Acceptance, and Contractual Remedies

This report analyzes a contract law case involving Juan, a smoothie stand owner, and Crystal, a local organic farmer. The case centers on a dispute arising from their business transactions, specifically concerning the offer, acceptance, and revocation of a contract for kale supply. The report explores key legal concepts such as offer, acceptance, and the conditions under which an offer can be terminated or revoked. It examines the rules of acceptance, including communication methods and the impact of counter-offers. Furthermore, the report delves into the remedies available for breach of contract, such as seeking damages or injunctions. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, emphasizing the importance of clear communication and adherence to contract law principles in business dealings. The report highlights how Juan could seek compensation from Crystal for the breach of contract and the circumstances under which a counter-offer could affect the outcome.

Contract Law

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Business law covers various aspects that helps in ensuring that the contract related measures
of parties are appropriate as well as practicable. The report discuses regarding a case of Juan and
Crystal, who have been planning in indulge into a contract. However, the same was not been
made possible due to miscommunication in offer and acceptance aspect of the agreement. The
report discuses regarding various concepts related to business law, especially, offer, acceptance
and its revocation. The report will then discuss various remedies that can be adopted by Juan.
Main Body
The case discusses regarding Juan, who is young entrepreneur, owning a super food
smoothie stand. He is keen to indulge in supporting the owners of other local business as well so
he always buys his food products required to run a smoothie stand from a local organic farmer,
called, Crystal, located at Barnsford.
On Monday, Juan left a message on telephone, on the answering machine asking Crystal
that he needs to buy Kale and asked for the week’s price with respect to per case of kale. Juan
also stated that he needs the product as soon as possible. In answer to the message being received
from the side of Juan, Crystal, faxed the prices of kale stating that it is £10 per box. He also
stated that the price is valid for Monday only. He also stated that he is only left with the 2 boxes
and more boxes can be made available to Juan, later in this week. Juan immediately replied on
the fax being received form the side of Crystal that he requires those two boxes to be made
delivered on Wednesday and he also wants other 2 boxes of kale to be delivered on coming
Friday, but he is expecting that he will get all the four boxes at same price (McKendrick, 2014).
Crystal was not able to receive his fax until Tuesday morning due to his indulgence in
some farmer convention. However, due to not receiving any type of replay from the side of Juan,
Crystal affirmatory answered and decidie3d to provide its product to another trader who was
ready to pay £20 per box. He decided that all the production being made by Crystal will be
transferred to the new trader for next three weeks.
Juan got upset when he received the news, which was conveyed by Crystal. He thought
that the acts being performed and adopted by Crystal is unfair enough as he does not have any
other source to get smoothie from.
The issue that can be analysed from the scenario presented above is related to business
transactions that took place between Juan and Crystal. The issue can also have been generated
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due to offer and acceptance being made between Juan, Crystal and the other trader which was
ultimately bring able to gather the offer. Offer and acceptance is the tradition approach that has
direct link to contract law. The contract is generally made between offeror and the offeree, which
are generally the parties who may be planning to come into the binding contract. Offer ios
considered to be an expression of willingness to contract with the other individual on the exact
terms being offered without having any type of negotiation so that the obligatory contract can be
treated as acceptance only. Further, offer can be different from the of invitation as it can also
include negotiation aspect in it as well (Schwenzer, Hachem and Kee, 2012).
There are various aspects where the offer can be considered as terminated. The first
aspect related to it is that if the offer has already been accepted, there is no circumstances that the
same can be made available to the other individual again. Further, if the offer is once rejected by
one individual, then it tends to end on that that terms for that particular individual. There are
other three ways based on which the offeror has the right to reject the offer being made by him.
First is when the offeror notice that offeree is not in any mood of accepting the offer made.
Second is, when the offeree wishes to accept the offer but based on certain conditions to be
implemented in the overall offer being made (Kraakman and Hansmann, 2017). The third is if
any type of counter offer has been made by the offeree to the offeror, in that case also he
deserves the right to reject the offer. However, there are certain situations, where, offeree may be
asking for certain more information and is not being counter offering. In this scenario, there are
chances that the offeror and offeree may settle down on the same perspective in the end. It will
not be treated as rejection of the offer made (Contractual agreement - offer and acceptance,
2016).
In certain cases, the offeror enjoys the right to revoke the offer before it has actually been
accepted by the offeree. But is only possible in the case whebn revocation have already reached
to the offeree before the new offer has been accepted. Revocation can also be communicated by
the reliable third part as well. Considering the same aspects in the case scenario given for Juan
and crystal as well. Revocation being made by Crystal was not initially communicated to Juan,
before the new offer could have been accepted. In this scenario, it is from the side of crystal that
unfair treatment has actually been initiated on the part of Juan (Stone and Devenney, 2017).
There are certain rules of acceptance as well which are required to be followed by offeror
as well as offeree. It is important that the acceptance is appropriately being communicated. The
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acceptance being kept in the mind and not being communicated appropriately is not considered
as accepted. The legal implication of the same must also be communicated and if it has not been
accepted by the offeror then no legal binding of acceptance is considered with respect to this.
The acceptance from the side of offeree and offeror cannot be treated as a silence clause. In case
of Juan and Crystal, the offeror did not receive the message and hence silence was not
considered as acceptance of offer. Considering this scenario, Crystal is right at his part that he
did not treated silence as acceptance of offer from the side of Juan (Vogenauer, 2013).
Further, another aspect that is related to acceptance is that, if the offer includes a
particular method of communication. It can be in the form of post or fax as well. It is important
that the method being used for acceptance must be appropriately been chosen by the two parties
in such a manner that the method is convenient to both the parties. If the offeree has used the
similar method in order to communicate the acceptance, then in that scenario, it will be treated as
accepted. Further, if any type of counter offer has been made at the time of acceptance of offer,
then in that case, it has high dependence on offeror that whether he / she wants to accept the offer
or not (Hall, Howells and Watson, 2012).
Rejection of offer or lapse of time is the other scenario that has been attached to the
business transactions that are required to be taken into consideration while offering or rejecting a
particular offer. As per the rule of convenience in offer and acceptance of business transactions,
if the offer has been accepted by post, then in that case, there must be contract existing claiming
that the acceptance letter has already been posted by the offeree (Andrews, 2015). Hence, in case
of Juan, since the price sheet was actually gathered through fax, it was the appropriate method to
show acceptance as well. It can be stated that the method being used by Juan to communicate the
acceptance of offer to Crystal is appropriately being placed from Juan’s side.
It is important to communicate acceptance to the seller, which was already been done
from the side of Juan. However, in this scenario, Crystal is at mistake that he has not been able to
receive the acceptance letter due to this schedule. However, other situation is that the terms and
conditions in which the acceptance has actually being made by the offeree must match to what
has actually been communicated by him by the seller. It the terms and condition on which the
offer has been accepted is not same, then int hat case, it will be considered as a counter offer and
no contract will be considered as arisen from the same. Further, the agreement must be certain
and legally bound so as to convert it into a valid contract (Poole, 2014).
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Remedies for breach of contract can be available that can ultimately be adopted by Juan
in a manner that it can help him in coping up with the situation. Since, business law is related to
creation of legal business relations, it can help in suggesting the methods that can be taken by
offeror and offeree in a manner that the actions can be taken by them in case of breach of
contract. In case of breach of contract, there are certain situations that offeror makes the offer
and does not wait for the reply from the side of offeree and indulge in the contact with some
other individual. In this scenario, the first offeree has right to sue the offeror and claim for the
damages. Hence, it can be stated that Juan can ask Crystal to pay for the damages. Injunction is
another aspect, which helps in preventing harm where, court can help Juan from claiming the
amount of harm that has been initiated from the side of Crystal by not seeing the accepted offer
and indulging in some other offer (Tushnet, 2017).
Hence in the given scenario, it can be stated that any change in the contract terms while
accepting the offer do not make the individual liable from performing the particular acts. In this
scenario, Juan and Crystal, who tries to indulge into the contract through offer and acceptance
where, Crystal made the offer to some other individual without waiting for the reply from the
side of Juan made him liable to pay for the damages which are actually being incurred by Juan.
Hence, in this scenario, Juan have right to sue Crystal and ask for compensation (Ellison and
Boyd, 2013).
However, the main issue that may arise in gathering compensation from the side of
Crystal is counter offer being made by the party while accepting the offer and it has not being
accepted as it is as it was actually being made by the parties. Therefore, it can be stated that there
are chances that the individual may not be able to gather compensation due to changes being
made y him in the actual offer wile making an acceptance.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that, the case discusses regarding Juan, who is
young entrepreneur, owning a super food smoothie stand. He is keen to indulge in supporting the
owners of other local business as well so he always buys his food products required to run a
smoothie stand from a local organic farmer, called, Crystal, located at Barnsford. The issue that
can be analysed from the scenario presented above is related to business transactions that took
place between Juan and Crystal. In certain cases, the offeror enjoys the right to revoke the offer
before it has actually been accepted by the offeree. There are certain rules of acceptance as well
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which are required to be followed by offeror as well as offeree. Rejection of offer or lapse of
time is the other scenario that has been attached to the business transactions that are required to
be taken into consideration while offering or rejecting a particular offer. Remedies for breach of
contract can be available that can ultimately be adopted by Juan in a manner that it can help him
in coping up with the situation.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Andrews, N., 2015. Contract law. Cambridge University Press.
Ellison, N. B. and Boyd, D. M., 2013. Sociality through social network sites. In The Oxford
handbook of internet studies.
Hall, E., Howells, G. and Watson, J., 2012. The Consumer Rights Directive–An Assessment of
its Contribution to the Development of European Consumer Contract Law. European
Review of Contract Law. 8(2). pp.139-166.
Kraakman, R. and Hansmann, H., 2017. The end of history for corporate law. In Corporate
Governance (pp. 49-78). Gower.
McKendrick, E., 2014. Contract law: text, cases, and materials. Oxford University Press (UK).
Poole, J., 2014. Casebook on contract law. Oxford University Press, USA.
Schwenzer, I., Hachem, P. and Kee, C., 2012. Global sales and contract law. Oxford University
Press.
Stone, R. and Devenney, J., 2017. The modern law of contract. Routledge.
Tushnet, M., 2017. Comparative constitutional law. In The Oxford handbook of comparative law.
Vogenauer, S., 2013. Regulatory competition through choice of contract law and choice of forum
in Europe: Theory and evidence. Eur. Rev. Private L.. 21. p.13.
Online
Contractual agreement - offer and acceptance. 2016. [Online]. Available through
<http://www.e-lawresources.co.uk/Offer-and-acceptance.php>
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