Contract Cases and Materials

by Beale, H. G.; Bishop, W. D.; Furmston, M. P.

• ISBN13: 9780199287369
• ISBN10: 0199287368
• Edition: 5th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-11-11
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This outstanding casebook on contract comprises a wide selection of cases and materials that not only illustrates the substantive law, but places it in its legal and commercial context. It demonstrates how the rules work both inside and outside the courtroom and how they may be used to guideagreements, as well as to settle disputes.

Author Biography

Hugh G Beale, Barrister, is a Commercial Law and Common Law Commissioner at the Law Commission for England and Wales. He was Professor of Law at the University of Warwick between 1987 and 2000. He was called to the Bar in 1971. W D Bishop is Chairman of Lexecon Ltd. He has held academic posts in the London School of Economics, Oxford, and at universities in Canada, Australia, and the United States of America. Dr Bishop was an economic advisor to the UK Government, Department of Trade and Industry, on aspects of the UK Competition Act (1997-98). Michael P Furmston is Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol. He is the author of Cheshire, Fifoot and Furmston's Law of Contract. He was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1960 and has been a Bencher of Gray's Inn since 1989.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Contracts and contract law

Contract, tort and restitution

The functions of contract law

Economic analysis of contract law

Empirical work

Enforceable Types of Promise

Consideration

Intention to create legal relations

Has an agreement been reached?

Offer and acceptance

Uncertainty and incompleteness

Communication mistakes

Obligations and Risks

Express terms in oral agreements

Contents of written contracts

Inaccurate information and misrepresentation

Gapfilling by interpretation

Implied terms

Discharge by frustration

Expectation mistakes

Discharge by construction

Duties of disclosure

Remedies

Some preliminary questions

Withholding performance and termination for default

Damages

Literal enforcement

Restitutionary remedies

Contract Theory

Why are promises binding?

Economic analysis of contract law

The impact of the empirical studies

Critical approaches to contract

Developing the relational contract notion

Fairness and distributive justice

Transformation thesis

Changing the Bargain

Rescission, variation, waiver and promissory estoppel

Adjustments in longer-term contracts

Policing the Bargain

Duress

Under pressure and undue influence

Unconscionable bargains

A general principle

Standard form contracts

Exclusion clauses

Unfair terms in consumer contracts

Regulated contracts

Illegality

Contracts contrary to public policy

Contracts involving the commission of a crime or a tort

Contracts in restraint of trade

Intermediaries, Third Parties and Assignment

Agency

Privity and the benefit of a contract between others

Subsequent assignment of the benefit of a contract

Privity and burdens

Assignment and the burden of a contract

Appendix

Index

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