CAVENDISH lawcards series®
Contract Law Fourth Edition
Cavendish Publishing Limited London • Sydney • Portland, Oregon
Fourth edition first published in Great Britain 2004 by Cavendish Publishing Limited, The Glass House, Wharton Street, London WC1X 9PX, United Kingdom Telephone:+44 (0)20 7278 8000 Facsimile:+44 (0)20 7278 8080 Email:
[email protected] Website: www.cavendishpublishing.com Published in the United States by Cavendish Publishing c/o International Specialized Book Services, 5824 NE Hassalo Street, Portland, Oregon 97213–3644, USA Published in Australia by Cavendish Publishing (Australia) Pty Ltd 45 Beach Street, Coogee, NSW 2034, Australia Telephone:+61 (2)9664 0909 Facsimile:+61 (2)9664 5420 Email:
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Contents 1
Agreement
2
Consideration
19
3
Contents of a Contract
37
4
Exemption (Exclusion or Limitation) Clauses
53
Vitiating Elements which Render a Contract Voidable
71
6
Mistake
93
7
Illegality and Capacity
107
8
Discharge
125
9
Remedies for Breach of Contract and Restitution
143
Privity of Contract
167
5
10
1
1
Agreement
The traditional view that an agreement requires the identification of a valid offer and a valid acceptance of that offer has been challenged in recent years by:
Ü Lord Denning in Gibson v Manchester City Council (1979)
Ü
and Butler Machine Tool Co Ltd v Ex-Cell-O Corpn Ltd (1979) where he stated that providing the parties were agreed on all material points, then there was no need for the traditional analysis; Lord Justice Steyn (obiter) in Trentham Ltd v Archital Luxfer (1993) where he stated that a strict analysis of offer and acceptance was not necessary in an executed contract in a commercial setting.
The traditional view, however, was applied by the House of Lords in Gibson v Manchester City Council (1979). Lord Diplock did recognise that there may be some ‘exceptional contracts which do not fit easily into an analysis of offer and acceptance’, for example, a multi-partite contract as in Clarke v Dunr