Law 201 Notes

Law 201

8/31

JUDICIAL BRANCH

Life Time Service

Court System

• District Courts: Trial courts

• Civil vs Criminal: different methods to come to a verdict

• Circuit Courts of Appeal
• US Supreme Court

• 9 justices, need majority to win (5), you need 4 to hear a case
• 5k-10k petition per year, hear now b/w 65-80 per year
• Cases to take: major constitutional issues, allocation of power b/w congress and president
• State supreme court can go to federal supreme court if its deals with federal matters

9/05

Contracts

• Must agree in the subject matter and must be legal
• Usually processes in life are a long line of contracts
• Elements of Contracts

• Agreement

• Offer
• Acceptance

• Consideration
• Capacity

• Legal capacity to enter into contract (grey area of minors?, etc)

• Legal

• Subject matter of the contract must be legal

• Absence of Fraud, etc.
• Formalities

• Enforceable contracts
• Void agreements (can’t be enforced by anyone)
• Unilateral vs. Bilateral Agreement

• Bilateral (A promise for a promise, ex. You promise to give someone $200, and that someone promises to sell you a phone…an exchange of promises, ex: utilities)
• Unilateral (Ex: You do 100 hours of work for someone and they promise to owe you $100)
• Courts typically classify agreements as bilateral unless the legal writing for the agreement is crystal clear…then it may be a unilateral agreement

• Implied vs. Expressed Contracts

• Implied contracts ( Ex: Walking into a coffee shop and purchasing a coffee and they accept your money)
• Expressed contracts ( The terms by both parties are agreed to either orally or in writing)

• Promissory Estoppel

• You see it a lot with gifts (ex: Someone promises to buy you a new car and you sell your old car already, and then they back out of the deal)

• Unjust enrichment

• (Ex: You leave early in the morning to go to work and it snows bigtime, and when you get home your house is all shoveled. Local kids shoveled it and ask for money, but you don’t owe them since you never agreed to them doing it…Ex: Someone accidentally sends you $20,000 in the mail, you must return it)

9/07

Offers

• Parts of an offer

• Must be communicated
• Definitive (reasonably)
• Intent to deal

• Objective standard – Based on what the offerees hear, and whether or not they interpret this as an actual offer (ex: Offer to buy your friend’s sandwich for $1000 because you’re super hungry…ex: The Lucy/Zimmer case where Zimmer and Lucy got drunk and discussed the sale of Zimmer’s property and ultimately ended with a 45 minute discussion and a written offer, Zimmer argued that he was drunk and kidding in court but the judge ruled against him due to that a reasonable person would assume that he was serious)
• When does an offer terminate?

• An expiration date (What if there’s no date?...A reasonable amount of time passes)
• Death of the offeror or offeree
• Rejection (Even if you change your mind instantly after rejecting the offer)
• Revoke (Offeror can revoke an offer any time before it is accepted)

• Unilateral offers
• Promissory estoppel
• Option contracts

• Destruction of sale matter
• Illegality

9/12

Revocation

• Unilateral Offer
• Promissory estoppel
• Option contract

• (ex: You have until Monday to accept)
• What converts a simple offer into an option contract? → Someone is making you an offer and you have a certain amount of time to exercise the offer. There must be consideration given for that privilege.

9/21

Minors in contracts

• Minors are able to sue or get money back from just about any contract
• Parents can be liable for minor’s actions if they heavily influenced the minor’s actions
• Annulment of an agreement

• Mistake
• Fraud and misrepresentation
• Duress
• Undue influence

9/26

Getting out of a contract

• False representation (not the same thing as not speaking up at all)
• Voluntarily disclosing wrong information, and not correcting yourself
• Latent Defect

• (Not disclosing that your basement floods during heavy rain and it’s july and there are no marks of previous flooding, and you sell the house without saying so)

• Can’t use to get a contract:

• Duress - A wrongful threat that overcomes a parties’ free will, any threat to bring a criminal prosecution against someone, it must overcome your free will

• Undue influence – A situation where one party is in a position to exercise influence over another, and substitutes their own will for that of the party

9/28

Undue influence

• Misrepresentation (Buying a hotel example…owner says his previous yrs income is $30k, he doesn’t disclose that a highway is getting shut down near the hotel reducing traffic, and he says he’ll make $45k next year. Guy buys it and finds that he only made $15k, finds out about the highway, and sues. Doesn’t hold up because 1. He was given the books 2. Highway building and shutting down is public knowledge 3. The owner was an expert in hotel owning and did misrepresent his opinion of being able to make $45k next year, but the buyer should’ve been able to realize a highway was getting shut down and there’s no way his income was going to go up.
• EXAM:  Ch 12. When does an offer terminate, offer contract (given reasonable time to decide, like an internship offer)

EXAM NOTES

• Unliquidated debt – unclear of the actual amount, confusion between those involved in the contract, unclear and disputed between parties
• Liquidated debt – It is clear who owes who what, clear and undisputed by either party
• Promissory Estoppel – When a promisor has made a promise to a promisee who then relies on that promise to his subsequent detriment
• Mutual mistake – An error is made by both parties
• Unilateral mistake – One party is mistaken to the subject matter or terms in an agreement (Ex: Giving a quote for $4000 of landscaping work and saying ah shit, it’s actually $4010 isnt a strong case for avoiding the contract…but if there’s a contract to buy and sell 2 super bowl tickets, round trip airfare and lodging for $25 and it was supposed to be $2500, that’s a strong case)
• Offer to buy a neighbor’s ball, the dude emails you saying $250, you email back saying $200, he emails back saying he’ll think about it but how about $225)…Offer, counter offer and rejection, counter offer without rejection
• Mailbox rule- An offer is considered accepted at the time an acceptance is mailed (unless they say it MUST be received by midnight and you mail it out that day but it doesn’t arrive to them by midnight…then it’s void)
• Mailbox rule again – An offerees rejection is effective when received by the offeror, and an offerors revocation is effective when received by the offeree.
• Majority Rule – ex: a full refund for a minor buying a baseball and his little brother fucks it up
• Minority Rule – Partial refund
• Adequate consideration – Having no legal obligation and performing the act in order to accept the contract
• An offer that is rejected prior to the termination date of the offer is NOT terminated in all events.
• Puffery- “This boat sails like the wind”
• Implied-in-fact contract – ex: You have an open account at a coffee shop, walk in, fill up a cup, show the cashier, you both nod, knowing he will charge you for it on your account. Inferred from the conduct of the parties, a mutual understanding.
• Express contract- All elements are specifically stated in words, verbally or written
• Quasi Contract- an agreement between two parties without previous obligations to one another that has been created and legally recognized by the court system. Ex: My buddy orders a pizza and doesn’t have cash, I pay for it. I never get repaid even though it was his pizza and he ate it. A judge would issue a quasi contract so that I don’t get stiffed.
• Implied in law contract- imposed as a legal remedy to prevent injustice, forced in favor of the wronged party
• Ex: If I sell a baseball bat to someone for $100 that I think is old and shitty, and it turns out to be worth $1000, I can’t get my bat back because it will not be cancelled because the mistake relates to the value of the item.
• Frustration of purpose – Unforeseen event undermines the principle purpose of the contract

10/10

Legality

• One of two requirements for a contract
• Tort- A wrongful act, leading to civil legal liability. Much easier to win a tort lawsuit than win a criminal trial because the burden of proof is much, much less (ex: OJ Simpson)

• Libel is a tort
• Invasion of privacy is a tort
• Any contract to commit a tort is unenforced
• Will be told on an exam that something is a tort

EXAM 1 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

11/2

REASONS A CONTRACT CAN TERMINATE

1. Performance
2. Breach
3. Failure of Conditions
4. Rescission
5. Operation of Law

1. Bankruptcy
2. Impossibility

1. Contract can not be fulfilled…someone you hire for their services dies

1. Impracticality

1. An unforeseen circumstances that makes the contract extremely burdensome for one party in contract…still down to judge’s ruling

1. Frustration of Purpose

1. Have an event outside the control of your parties, completely frustrates the purpose of the contract…as a result of this event the contract is pretty much worthless to one of the parties and there’s nothing you can do
2. Ex: You have the lease for an apartment for one day in order to watch a huge parade…the parade gets cancelled
3. Ex: Rent apartment for one year because it’s close to work and that’s the only reason you’re there, and you get fired a few days before work starts…it is NOT frustration of purpose because you can easily sublease that apartment for your money

11/7

Breach of Contract

1. Ex: if you perform just under your mark for work, they can’t claim breach of contract because there is a justifiable, industry standard range.
2. Ex: Buy a cup of coffee, there is a range of what is acceptable for how much coffee is put in the cup.
3. Material breach example – CEO fired for getting felony, detrimental misconduct
4. Ex: Professor puts down cost of $100 for school expense, pocket it. Dean calls him in and says don’t do it again. Professor does it again. This becomes insubordination and

The Operation of Law

• Impossibility
• Impracticality
• Frustration of Purpose

11/14

Parole evidence rule

• Any evidence that contradicts the contract prior to the signing of the contract is inadmissible
• Conditions, ambiguity, etc.

Third parties

• Sign delegation

• Ex: I have the right to attend lehigh if I pay tuition and meet all of their standards…Can I give that right to another student if I don’t want to go? NO.

• Third party beneficiaries

• Anyone who is not a part of the contract that can sue? Intended beneficiaries.

Be able to identify a breach, identify breach material

• You can terminate the contract ONLY if it’s a breach that is a material breach

• Ex: You have a contract with a house contractor that specifies a very specific type of cement be used. He uses a different kind of cement and your foundation breaks…MATERIAL BREACH
• Ex: Same scenario. He uses the same quality cement but different brand…BREACH, BUT NOT MATERIAL BREACH
• Ex: Same scenario. He uses a higher quality kind of cement…NOT BREACH

• Ex: Professor shows up to class late 30 mins every single class for entire semester….He is warned…continues to do it….MATERIAL BREACH

EXAM 2:

Contract stuff:

-A condition in the contract doesn’t ALWAYS need to be in writing

-Things taken into account when a change occurs: whether the change was expected, the magnitude of the effect, whether there was a condition in the contract concerning this possible change