CONTRACT REQUIREMENTS

Hooligans harming spectators

The organiser of a sports event is under a duty to take adequate measures (duty of care). It must pay compensation in respect of injury and non-material injury suffered by close relatives.

Snow-covered steps

The owner of a piece of land which is available for use by the public must comply with Verkehrssicherheit requirements. Liable for damage due to defective makntenance.

Lettuce leaf

The store has a general duty of safety to keep the floor clean and safe for customers (Verkehrssicherheit), though absolute safety cannot be reasonably expected

Hold-up by convicts

The State is liable for administrative decisions that have created a special risk for the plaintiff, even in the absence of fault of the State.

Claim by concubine

Unmarried cohabiting partners have a sufficient interest to qualify as secondary victims under French tort law

Destruction of sperm

The culpable destruction of sperm constitutes an interference either bodily integrity and the autonomy of the person. General personality right

Power cable

There is no interference with the Recht and Gewerbebetrieb when production must be stopped because of a failure after an electricity cable has been cut. (Right to business)

The bank guarantee

To form a valid contract, it does not matter whether the party communicating an intention to be bound actually had the will to make or was even conscious of making a declaration.

Shared business trip

An agreement to share the costs of a business trip is not sufficient to establish a contract

Betting syndicate

An agreement to place a bet each week does not create a legal obligation so that the person who had agreed to place it will be liable of the bet would have won.

Exploding lemonade bottle

A customer in a self-service store makes the contract by placing the goods selected in the basket provided even though they have not paid yet.

If she is subsequently injured by the goods their claim against the store would be in contract.

The manufacturer of the goods is not liable if the accident was caused by the conduct of the store.

Shark meat

Where the parties are agreed on a particular obligation but use the wrong word to describe it, their common intention will prevail.

The threatened wife

If the means and the purpose of the exerted pressure are in themselves legitimate, the threat may nevertheless be illegitimate depending on

1. whether the person threatening has a legitimate interest in achieving the result he is after, and

2. whether, according to all right minded persons, the threat constitutes a reasonable means to achieve that result

Furthermore, a threat is illegitimate only if the person making the threat knows or should know the facts rendering the threat to be contrary to morality.

The former shop director

A contract cannot be voided on the ground of threat if the threat was not sufficiently serious to determine the threatened party’s consent

The Rolf

The abuse by the one party of the other party’s state of necessity, which has led that party to enter into an onerous (salvage) agreement, renders the agreement voidable on the ground of threat as the consent to enter into the agreement is not freely given.

The EDF strike

A strike of a party’s own workforce is an internal event except when it affects the public as a whole

The bad harvest

One cannot be required to do more than one can reasonably perform considering good faith requirements and exceptional circumstances.

Surrogate motherhood: France

The wife of a childless couple who arranges that another should bear the husband’s child and hand it over on birth is not permitted to adopt the child.

Ship not loaded

When a positive breach of contract is so serious that the aggrieved party cannot reasonably be expected to continue with the contract, he may terminate it without serving a notice requiring the other to perform.

Machine for peeling artichokes

A party who has failed to perform cannot be ordered to pay compensation for losses which were not envisaged, and could not have been envisaged, at the time the contract was made.

The bad-tempered bear

A debtor whose non-performance has caused injury to the creditor should be liable in full for her injuries unless he is exonerated on the ground of force majeure or unless she contributed to her own injury through her own fault.

Alcock v. Chief Constable of South Yorkshire…Psychiatric injury

Primary victims: a duty of care to avoid psychiatric injury exists

Secondary victims when:

1. Reasonably foreseeable

2. Threefold proximity

» Emotional, Time and place, Perception

Caparo v. Dickman…duty of care test

Threefold test for duty of care:

1. Foreseeability

2. Proximity

3. Fair, just and reasonable

Snail in bottle case

1. Foreseeability

2. Proximity

3. To whom do you have to be careful

Old movie theatre

Common law does not impose liability for what are called pure omissions (unless defendant causes or permits for a source of danger to be created and it is reasonably foreseeable that third parties would interfere)

Teacher harrasment

Police owes a general duty of care to the public, but not to specific individuals unless an exceptional risk was created.

BUT: ECtHR - court must examine before granting immunity

Husband v Police

No violation of Article 2 (right to live): the police honestly believed that there was a life threat at that moment; sufficient procedural steps have to be taken

Compensation of non-pecuniary damage of the family

Hachette

Duties and responsibilities inherent in the freedom of expression + the injunction does not have a deterrence t effect on the press

Tarasoff

Protective privileges ends where the public peril begins

Confidentiality and public health, specific, sufficient threat to others

Spartan steel

Pure property loss and economic loss resulting from property loss is recoverable while pure economic loss without property loss is not recoverable

Howald Moor

When it is scientifically proven that an individual could not know that he/she was suffering from a particular disease, that fact should be taken into consideration in calculating the limitation period

Carbolic Smole Ball (advertisement)

Ad = legally binding offer

1. Offer can be made to the world

2. No qualifications were added

3. Company’s intent

4. Ad = sufficiently specific

Two kinds of offers:

• offers that lead to legally binding contract upon acceptance

• Offers that invite to enter into negotiations

Dutch lottery

Small print on the back contradicts the statement on the front

Hannah (abandoned ship)

Consensus us of minds + intention

Reasonable interpretation of the verbal expression or behaviour of the other party

Raffles

Wichelhaus refuses to accept the cotton

No agreement on the same thing, no contract

Hartog (Argentine hare skins)

No contract (no consensus) custom in the gare skins trade: price per price and not per pound

Walker

The parties would not have made the contract sale except upon the understanding and belief that she was incapable of breeding and of no use as a cow

Mistake goes to the essence of the agreement

Atlantic Baron

Duress can exist as well if its does not pertain to the owners as such (physical well being) or to the integrity of their goods

The delay, lack of protest, and the fact that the owners did not believe that the builders would have refused to deliver either one of the two ships = affirmation of the agreement

Davis Contractors Ltd.

Building contract took 22 moths instead of 8 and more costly.

More difficult/less profitable but is nevertheless still possible and not manifestly unjust

Schroeder Music

Contract contrary to public policy (promotion of trade)

Trafalgar Insurance

If there is any ambiguity, since it is the defendant’s clause, the ambiguity will be resolved in favour of the assured

Hochster

If one party clearly refuses to perform a contract before performance is due, the other party can treat this as a breach immediately and sue for damages without waiting for the performance date

White

Threefold duty of care