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Basic Concepts in the Law of Contracts

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LGST 612 Prof. Kevin Werbach BASIC CONCEPTS IN THE LAW OF CONTRACTS Contracts are essential to business. They are a legal mechanism used in every industry and every part of the world to structure relationships among firms, and with customers, partners, and suppliers. Over several centuries, the law governing contracts has developed a large number of doctrines. Most are consistent with common sense, but unless you know what the rules are, you can easily make a mistake. This document introduces the fundamentals of contract law most relevant to businesspeople. Important legal terms are italicized. What is a Contract? And what is Contract Law? Legally, a contract is a set of promises that the law will enforce. We make promises all the …show more content…

To do otherwise would be unfair to the party that was harmed by honoring their commitments. In modern contract law, intent and reasonable reliance often trump formalities. A contract may generally be enforced even if it not signed, written, or even expressly made. For example, if a fishmonger delivers fresh fish to a restaurant every Monday for a year and receives the same payment each time, there may be an implied contract even if the parties never explicitly spoke about it. The plaintiff still needs to convince the judge or jury in court, which is much harder to do based on oral testimony than documentary evidence. Unwritten contracts also leave significant gaps for courts to fill in. The implied contract between the restaurant and the fishmonger, for example, could be terminated at any time by the parties, because there is no explicit term guaranteeing how long it will last. Remedies What a court awards to a successful plaintiff for breach of contract is known as the remedy. In contract law, the sole purpose of the remedy is to adequately compensate for the breach. You cannot receive additional “punitive” damages to punish someone for breach of contract, as you might under a tort claim such as products liability. (The same facts, however, might give rise to both kinds of

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