Essential Cases: Contract Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in Davis Contractors Ltd v Fareham Urban District Council [1956] AC 696. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Nicola Jackson.
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Essential Cases: Contract Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in Davis Contractors Ltd v Fareham Urban District Council [1956] AC 696. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Nicola Jackson.
Chapter
Essential Cases: Contract Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in Davis Contractors Ltd v Fareham Urban District Council [1956] AC 696. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Nicola Jackson.
Chapter
Essential Cases: Contract Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in Williams v Roffey Bros & Nicholls (Contractors) Ltd [1991] 1 QB 1. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Nicola Jackson.
Chapter
Essential Cases: Contract Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in Williams v Roffey Bros & Nicholls (Contractors) Ltd [1991] 1 QB 1. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Nicola Jackson.
Chapter
Essential Cases: Contract Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in Williams v Roffey Bros & Nicholls (Contractors) Ltd [1991] 1 QB 1. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Nicola Jackson.
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7. Interpreting the terms
Construction, rectification, and mutual mistake
This chapter considers how the courts make sense of contracts whose terms are capable of more than one interpretation. It begins by discussing two broad approaches to construing contracts, both of which have influenced English law and both of which continue to form part of the law: literalism and contextualism. It then examines the role English law currently assigns to literalism and contextualism and how the courts decide which to apply, with particular emphasis on the Investors rule and contextual readings. It also evaluates an alternative remedy known as rectification and concludes with an analysis of the limits of construction and the law of mutual mistake.
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Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter examines the situation where both parties to a contract share a common mistake. It analyses several court cases indicating that certain sorts of mistake can render contracts void at the level of common law. It discusses the orthodox approach which asserts that there is a separate legal doctrine whereby certain sorts of common mistakes inevitably render a contract void; it also considers an alternative way of conceptualising common mistake cases, the construction approach, which argues that the effect of common mistake is ascertained by construing and interpreting the contract. This chapter also considers the scope of the equitable remedy of rectification for common and unilateral mistake, which gives the court the jurisdiction, in exceptional cases, to correct transcription mistakes in the parties’ written contractual document.
Chapter
7. Interpreting the terms
Construction, rectification, and mutual mistake
This chapter considers how the courts make sense of contracts whose terms are capable of more than one interpretation. It begins by discussing two broad approaches to construing contracts, both of which have influenced English law and both of which continue to form part of the law: literalism and contextualism. It then examines the role English law currently assigns to literalism and contextualism and how the courts decide which to apply, with particular emphasis on the Investors rule and contextual readings. It also evaluates an alternate remedy known as rectification and concludes with an analysis of the limits of construction and the law of mutual mistake.
Chapter
Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter examines the situation where both parties to a contract share a common mistake. It analyses several court cases indicating that certain sorts of mistake can render contracts void at the level of common law. It discusses the doctrine of mistake approach which asserts that certain sorts of common mistake inevitably render a contract void and the construction approach which argues that the effect of common mistake is ascertained by construing and interpreting the contract. This chapter also considers the scope of the equitable remedy of rectification for common and unilateral mistake.
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Each Concentrate revision guide is packed with essential information, key cases, revision tips, exam Q&As, and more. Concentrates show you what to expect in a law exam, what examiners are looking for, and how to achieve extra marks. This chapter discusses the use and enforceability of exemption clauses (total exclusion or limitation of liability clauses inserted into contracts) and their legislative regulation. Whereas the regulation of such clauses is limited to the common law and UCTA 1977 in the case of commercial contracts (B2B), in the case of consumer contracts (B2C) the law intervenes to control a broader category of terms, ‘unfair contract terms’ (Consumer Rights Act 2015) with the critical test being ‘unfairness’.
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This chapter focuses on the enforcement of settlements and awards. The approach taken to enforcement of compromises in large measure depends on the nature of the process used to resolve the original dispute. In adjudicative procedures, enforcement will often be through registering the award with the courts of the state where enforcement is to take place, and then enforcing the award as a civil judgment. An exception is construction industry adjudications, where the decision is not itself registrable. Instead, it may be enforced through bringing court proceedings and entering judgment. In non-adjudicative procedures, if the parties have resolved their dispute, they will have entered into a contract of compromise. Enforcement is through suing on that contract. Alternatively, in a non-adjudicative procedure, the parties may convert the compromise agreement into a court judgment or order, and then enforce that judgment or order.
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Robert Merkin and Séverine Saintier
Poole’s Casebook on Contract Law provides a comprehensive selection of case law that addresses all aspects of the subject encountered on undergraduate courses. This chapter deals with exemption clauses and unfair contract terms. An exemption clause is a term in a contract or notice that can be either an exclusion clause (excluding liability or remedies) or a limitation clause (limiting liability to a specified sum). The chapter primarily focuses on the requirements that must be satisfied before an exemption clause can be relied upon, the question of construction and the natural and ordinary meaning of the clause, contra proferentem, liability for negligence, limitation clauses, inconsistent terms, and fundamental breach. It then examines the legislative regulation of exemption clauses, emphasizing the growing distinction between commercial and consumer contracts in this context. It considers in some depth the enforceability of exemption clauses in a B2B context in accordance with the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and its interpretation in case law. In the B2C context, it discusses control of unfair terms in accordance with Part 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the case law interpreting the previous legislative regulation of unfair terms.
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Robert Merkin KC, Séverine Saintier, and Jill Poole
Poole’s Casebook on Contract Law provides a comprehensive selection of case law that addresses all aspects of the subject encountered on undergraduate courses. This chapter deals with exemption clauses and unfair contract terms. An exemption clause is a term in a contract or notice that can be either an exclusion clause (excluding liability or remedies) or a limitation clause (limiting liability to a specified sum). The chapter primarily focuses on the requirements that must be satisfied before an exemption clause can be relied upon, the question of construction and the natural and ordinary meaning of the clause, contra proferentem, liability for negligence, limitation clauses, inconsistent terms, and fundamental breach. It then examines the legislative regulation of exemption clauses, emphasizing the growing distinction between commercial and consumer contracts in this context. It considers in some depth the enforceability of exemption clauses in a B2B context in accordance with the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and its interpretation in case law. In the B2C context, it discusses control of unfair terms in accordance with Part 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the case law interpreting the previous legislative regulation of unfair terms.
