Legal Contract Laws

Contracts are legally enforceable promises. These promises are expressed with words and conduct or implied by conduct. To be valid, a contract must be made as part of a bargain for some sort of consideration, and the promisee must rely on the promise to his detriment or qualify under a statute that permits no consideration.

Types

There are three recognizable kinds of contracts. An express contract is one depicted by words. An implied contract is created by a demonstration of conduct. An implied-in-law contract is not a true contract but is upheld by courts to prevent an injustice to the parties.

Features

Contracts consist of three parts: offer, acceptance and consideration. Offers are an expression of intent to be bound and are not valid without an acceptance. Acceptance can be done by return promise or by performance of the promise. Consideration is the bargained-for exchange in which each party is subjected to a legal detriment.

Warning

Certain agreements require satisfaction of the statute of frauds. The statute requires an agreement be in writing, signed, indicate a contract exists between the parties, state the terms of the agreement, and the quantity involved if the contract is for the sale of goods. Some of these contracts are contracts that take longer than a year to perform, sales of land and sales of goods more than $500.

Prevention

Some contracts are defensible for lack of a "meeting of the minds" between the parties. These defenses are incapacity, coercion or duress, undue influence (a party is taken advantage of), mistake, and misrepresentation. A contract also can be found void if it is unconscionable, illegal or against public policy.

Solutions

Contracts are often breached. In that case, parties have remedies to make them whole or to put them back where they were when the contract was made. Some remedies include but are not limited to expectation damages, reliance damages, incidental damages, interest, punitive and specific performance.

References

• LexisNexis