Course-focused and comprehensive, Poole’s Textbook on Contract Law 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
8. Terms of a Contract
This chapter focuses on the terms or details of a contractual agreement, and considers the implications of what the parties intend to include in the agreement, what they did not mean to be included in the contract, and what significance different terms may have in the contract. It distinguishes between the terms of a contract and representations, and considers whether, when a term has been identified as such, it is a ‘condition’ or a ‘warranty’. The chapter then studies how terms are implied into the contract and how this affects terms that have been expressed. It concludes by examining how parties may seek to exclude or limit a legal responsibility through the incorporation of an exclusion clause.
Book
Mindy Chen-Wishart
Contract Law offers a new approach, utilising diagrams and commentary boxes to complement the text. The book explains the intricacies of contract law by reference to the questions that arise during the life of a contract. Part I of the book introduces contract law. Part II looks at contract formation: the finding of agreement and meeting the criteria of enforceability. Part III focuses on the position of third parties who may benefit or be burdened by the contract. Part IV considers the reasons for allowing a party to escape the contract, namely the vitiating factors of misrepresentation and non-disclosure, mistake, frustration, duress, undue influence, and unconscionability. Part V looks at how to determine the contents of contracts: express, implied, and collateral terms, and examines their interpretation and enforceability. Part VI considers the breach of a contract and the availability of the remedies of termination, damages, and specific and agreed remedies. Part VII examines whether obligations of good faith should be recognised in current contract law and how that might affect the way we understand contract law.
Book
TT Arvind
Contract Law provides a uniquely practical approach to the topic; enriched with scenarios to support deep understanding of legal principles, analysis, and critique. The text is divided into four parts. Part I covers forming contracts. It looks at bargaining and agreeing, and the requirements of mutuality, legal relations, and non-contractual promises. Part II considers issues related to keeping contracts. It examines the assembling of the contract, interpreting the terms of a contract, flexible terms, and changes in contracts. The next part is about regulating contracts. It looks at untrue statements, the limits of hard bargaining, controlling contractual terms, and protecting the public interest. The final part is about enforcing contracts. The text here examines issues relating to breach of contract, compensatory remedies, non-compensatory remedies, and third party matters.
Chapter
11. Untrue statements
Misrepresentation and unilateral mistake
This chapter examines how English law deals with the problem of untrue statements through the doctrines of misrepresentation and unilateral mistake. It begins with an overview of contractual transactions involving at least some measure of information asymmetry and proceeds by considering the basic principles of the law of misrepresentation. It then considers the three elements of false statements: the absence of general duties to disclose relevant facts, an objective approach to construing ambiguous statements, and a distinction between statements of fact and statements of opinion. It also discusses the remedies available to the representee in the case of misrepresentation, along with two types of unilateral mistakes recognized in law: unilateral mistakes as to identity and unilateral mistakes as to terms. The chapter concludes with an analysis of misleading selling practices and statutory remedies which are available to victims of misleading selling practices under the law of unfair commercial practices.
Chapter
13. Controlling contract terms
Exclusion clauses, penalties, and consumer protection
This chapter examines how the law regulates contract terms, with particular emphasis on rules that are intended to protect weaker parties. It begins with a discussion of the limits of freedom of contract and proceeds by assessing the role played by formal requirements, such as the requirement that contracts be in writing. It then considers how the law regulates contract terms which seek to alter the liability that one party will have in the event of breach. More specifically, it looks at exclusion clauses in the common law and the statutory regulation of such clauses, along with liquidated damages, contractual remedies, and the rule against penalties. It also explores the extent to which consumer protection law restricts the terms that can be included in consumer contracts, especially when dealing with the problem of unfair terms.
Chapter
15. Breach of contract
Repudiation and the right to terminate
This chapter examines how English law defines breach of contract and what the immediate effect of breach is on the validity of the contract, along with the obligations of the parties under the contract. It first considers the core principles underlying the law’s approach to defining breach before explaining how the courts assess performance and the consequences of breach, with particular emphasis on cases involving repudiation. It then discusses three types or classes of contractual terms: conditions, warranties, and innominate terms. It also looks at how the law deals with situations of anticipatory breach and concludes with an analysis of the scope and limits of the right of a party to terminate the contract following a repudiatory breach by the other party.
Chapter
18. Privity and third parties
Protecting the rights of non-parties
This chapter examines how English law, through a doctrine known as privity of contract, deals with the problem posed by contracts whose performance involves third parties. According to the doctrine of privity, a contract ordinarily only affects persons who are party to it. Third parties are neither bound by the contract nor entitled to claim rights under the contract. However, the courts and Parliament developed a number of exceptions to the strict rule of privity, each of which gives third parties a right to sue under the contract in a certain type of situation. For example, the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 gives third party beneficiaries a right to enforce contract terms. This chapter first considers the problem of third party rights in contracting before discussing the effects of privity and the provisions of the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 in more detail.
Chapter
2. Bargaining and agreeing
Offer, acceptance, and formation
This chapter focuses on agreement between parties as a requirement in the formation of a contract. Agreement is said to be reached when one party (the ‘offeree’) makes an offer to another proposing certain terms by which he intends to be bound, which that other party accepts as made. An agreement will only be taken to have been reached if the acceptance perfectly mirrors the offer. This chapter first examines the relatively straightforward situation of a seller and buyer bargaining over a prospective sale. It explains the distinction between an offer, an invitation to treat, and a counter-offer, as well as the importance of communicating acceptance and applicability of the postal rule to modern forms of communication. It also considers how the principles of offer and acceptance translate to other forms of contracting. The chapter covers the most influential and important cases in the subject area.
Chapter
6. Assembling the contract
Representations, terms, and incorporation
This chapter considers how the courts determine what the terms of the contract are, both where the contract is in writing and where it is oral. It first examines unwritten contracts, focusing on oral negotiations and how the courts identify which statements, out of everything the parties said and did, were intended to have contractual force. It then discusses three categories of statements made by the parties: statements that are ‘mere puff’, statements that are factual ‘representations’, and statements that are intended to be contractual terms. It also describes written documents, and more specifically what impact the existence of a written contract has on other terms which a party argues were agreed, but which were not written down in the contract. The chapter concludes by looking at incorporation and the criteria the law sets for holding that external terms were validly incorporated into a contract.
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 alternative remedy known as rectification and concludes with an analysis of the limits of construction and the law of mutual mistake.
Book
Jack Beatson FBA, Andrew Burrows FBA, QC (Hon), and John Cartwright
Anson’s Law of Contract offers an accurate and authoritative account of the law and its underlying principles. This 31st edition continues to provide comprehensive and detailed coverage of all topics covered on modern contract law courses, and has been revised and updated to incorporate all notable developments in case law, legislation, and academic debate. Topics covered include, in the first part, the agreement, the formation of the contract, and promissory estoppel. The second part looks at the terms of the contract, exemption clauses, and unfair terms. Next the book looks at incapacity, mistake, misrepresentation and non-disclosure, duress, and illegality. The fourth part considers performance and discharge. The next part looks at damages and specific remedies. The sixth part of the book covers third parties, assignment and agency in terms of the limits of the contractual obligation.
Book
James Devenney
The Concentrate Questions and Answers series offers the best preparation for tackling exam questions. Each book includes typical questions, answer plans and suggested answers, author commentary, and other features. Concentrate Q&A Contract Law provides guidance on answering questions on the law of contract. The book starts with an introduction explaining how to use the book and exploring the skills necessary for success in contract law exams. The book then looks at offer and acceptance, certainty of terms, consideration and intention to create legal relations. After that it examines terms of the contract, exclusion/exemption clauses and unfair terms, misrepresentation, improper pressure, mistake and issues relating to illegality and restraint of trade. The final part of the book looks at frustration, damages, additional remedies, privity of contract and has a short section dealing with mixed questions. The book ends with a chapter containing advice on answering coursework questions.
Book
Janet OʼSullivan
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. The Law of Contract provides a concise overview of the fundamentals of contract law and its underlying rationales. It also introduces and explores the main academic debates within the subject, encouraging readers to reflect on the law and, where it is controversial, to form their own views on whether the rules that contract law adopts are justifiable.
Book
Janet O'Sullivan
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. The Law of Contract provides a concise overview of the fundamentals of contract law and its underlying rationales. It also introduces and explores the main academic debates within the subject, encouraging readers to reflect on the law and, where it is controversial, to form their own views on whether the rules that contract law adopts are justifiable.
Book
Robert Merkin KC 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. Extracts have been chosen from a wide range of historical and contemporary cases to illustrate the reasoning processes of the courts and to show how legal principles are developed. The book begins with some guidance on reading cases, and then turns to agreement and agreement problems. Next, it looks at the enforceability of promises and intention to be legally bound and the capacity to contract. The content of the contract is examined. Exemption clauses and unfair contract terms are analysed in detail. The book then considers initial impossibility, misrepresentation, duress, undue influence, and illegality. The book ends by discussing issues relating to breach of contract and remedies, and excuses for non-performance.
