Bus-115 (Business Law): Chapter 7 Guide
Tort law and the essential elements of contracts
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, students should be able to accomplish the following objectives:
- Define contract.
- Explain the origin of the law merchant.
- Discuss the relationship between common law and the law merchant.
- Identify the four elements of a contract.
- Explain the objectives of contract law.
- Explain the place of the UCC in contract law.
- Distinguish contracts from other agreements.
- Explain the role of privity and agency in contract law.
- List the contracts that must be in writing to be enforceable.
- List the characteristics of a contract.
Major Concepts
1. The History of Contract Law
With the Roman law providing a model, the Roman Catholic Church supplying political and social support, canon law supplying a moral framework, and practicality guiding their activities over a 300-year period, the merchants of the late Middle Ages developed a body of active law that was characterized by neutrality, universality, mutuality, involvement, integration, and evolution.
The law merchant was developed by the merchants themselves. The law merchant also successfully integrated itself into other legal tradition such as English common law. Many of its provisions still exist in today’s court decisions and statutes.
2. The Multidimensional Nature of Contract Law
Contract law is a multidimensional area of the law, laying out not only what our rights and duties are, but also whether we have actually undertaken those duties and been given those rights.
To explore this in more detail, we looked at the elements of a contract and at several additional multidimensional aspects of contract law including the objectives of contract law, remedies in contract law, contracts and the UCC, contracts and other agreements, contracts and agency law, and contracts that must be written.
3. Contractual Characteristics
Contractual characteristics fall into five categories. These categories are valid, void, voidable, or unenforceable; unilateral or bilateral; express or implied; informal or formal; and executory or executed.