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.
Book
Koffman, Macdonald & Atkins’ Law of Contract provides a clear, academically rigorous, account of the contract law which is written in a style which makes it highly accessible to university students new to legal study. It works from extensive consideration of the significant cases, to provide students with a firm grounding in the way the common law functions. There are chapters on formation, certainty, consideration, promissory estoppel, intention to create legal relations, express and implied terms, classification of terms, exemption clauses, the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, unfair terms in consumer contracts, mistake, misrepresentation, duress and undue influence, illegality, unconscionability, privity, performance and breach, frustration, damages, and specific enforcement, as well as companion website chapters on capacity and an outline of the law of restitution. Recent cases which are of particular note in this, the tenth edition, include the Supreme Court cases of: Wells v Devani (2019) on interpretation and implied terms, Pakistan International Airlines Corporation v Times Travel (UK) Limited (2021) on lawful act economic duress, Morris- Garner v One-Step (Support) Ltd (2019) and Triple Point Technology Inc v PTT Public Company Ltd (2021) on the law of damages, and Tillman v Egon Zehnder (2019) on illegality and severance, re-affirmed in the Court of Appeal ruling in Quantum Actuarial LLP v Quantum Advisory Ltd (2021). Further important Court of Appeal decisions include: TRW v Panasonic (2021) on ‘battle of the forms’, Ark Shipping v Silverburn Shipping (2019) on classification of terms, FSHC Holdings v GLAS Trust (2019) on the equitable remedy of rectification, considered within the chapter on the doctrine of mistake, and Classic Maritime Inc v Limbungan Makmur (2019) on the interpretation of force majeure clauses and the scope of the doctrine of frustration, issues which rapidly elevated in significance leading up to Brexit and upon the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Notable first instance decisions which have tested frustration in light of these events include Canary Wharf (BP4) T1 Ltd and others v European Medicines Agency (2019) in the context of Brexit, and Salam Air SAOC v Latam Airlines Group SA (2020) on the impact of Covid-19. Additional High Court rulings considered within this edition include Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Saeed Bin Shakhboot Al Nehayan v Ioannis Kent (2018) and Bates v Post Office Ltd (2019) on good faith, and Neocleous v Rees (2019) on electronic signatures coupled with the findings of the Law Commission Report on Electronic Execution of Documents (2019) Law Com No 386.
Book
Robert Merkin QC and Séverine Saintier
Course-focused and comprehensive, the series provides an accessible overview of the key areas on the law curriculum. This book has been guiding students through contract law for many years. It places the law of contract clearly within its wider context, including the growing distinction between commercial and consumer contracting, before proceeding to provide detailed yet accessible treatment of all the key areas encountered when studying contract law. Part 1 considers formation, looking in detail at agreement, certainty and agreement mistakes, the enforceability of promises and the intention to be legally bound. Part 2 looks at content, interpretation, exemption clauses and unfair terms, performance, and breach. Part 3 considers the enforcement of contractual obligations including remedies, detailed treatment of damages for breach of contract, privity and third party rights, and discharge by frustration. Part 4 looks at methods of policing the making of a contract, such as non-agreement mistakes which render the contract void, misrepresentation, duress, undue influence, unconscionable bargains, and illegality. The book also includes references to relevant EU consumer legislation and introduces students to the various attempts (international and European) to produce a harmonized set of contract principles.
Chapter
Robert Merkin, Séverine Saintier, and Jill Poole
Course-focused and comprehensive, Poole’s Textbook on Contract Law provides an accessible overview of the key areas on the law curriculum. A clause which seeks either to exclude a party’s liability for breach or to limit that liability to a specified amount is known as an exemption clause. It is also possible for exemption clauses to seek to exclude or limit the remedies which would otherwise be available for breach or seek to deny that any breach of contract or breach of a duty of care has occurred. Although such clauses can allocate risks between the parties and prevent duplicate insurance cover, both the courts and the Parliament in the UK have sought to control their use. An exemption clause is enforceable if the clause in question is incorporated as a term, covers the loss that has occurred in the circumstances in which it arose, and is not rendered unenforceable by either the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 (B2B contracts) or Part 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (B2C contracts). This chapter examines the construction of exemption clauses as well as the legislative regulation of exemption clauses and, in the consumer context, unfair terms.
