However, the courts distinguish between situations where the actual subject matter of the contract is illegal and circumstances where the law has been accidentally violated by one of the parties during the performance of the contract. The innocent party can appeal in such cases. The royal courts, which were to meet in London by the Magna Carta in 1215, accepted claims for “trespassing in the affair” (now no longer as a crime). A jury would be convened, and no legal bet was required, but a breach of the king`s peace was to be claimed. Gradually, the courts granted requests when there had been no real problems, no “force of arms” crime (vi and armis), but it was still necessary to include it in the pleadings. In 1317, for example, a Simon of Rattlesdene claimed that he had been sold a wine vat contaminated with salt water, and quite fictitiously it was said that this had been done “with force and weapons, namely with swords and a bow and arrow.” [4] The Court of Chancery and the King`s Bench slowly began to allow claims without the fictitious allegation of violence and weapons from about 1350 onwards. A lawsuit for simple breach of an undertaking (a solemn promise) had required the presentation of formal proof of the agreement with a seal. However, in the case of The Humber Ferryman, a prosecution was allowed without documentary evidence against a smuggler who dropped a horse overboard to cross the Humber River. [5] Despite this liberalization, a threshold of 40 shillings for the value of a dispute was created in the 1200s.
Although its importance has diminished over the years with inflation, it has blocked most people`s access to the courts. [6] In addition, contractual freedom in the peasantry was decisively suppressed. After the Black Death, the Workers` Statute of 1351 prevented any increase in workers` wages, which, among other things, fuelled the peasant uprising of 1381. The law does not recognize a contract – or an agreement – to enter into a contract in the future. It has no binding effect, because the offer and acceptance do not exist. In other words, what are the terms of the offer? In commercial transactions, legal capacity is usually one of the simplest elements of a contract that must be fulfilled. From a legal point of view, none of these statements imply or imply that a contract would follow as a result of the response. The answer to these questions would probably be an offer.
To do so, it would have to meet the above criterion for submitting a tender. The Common Law of Privity of Contract is a sub-rule of consideration because it limits who can enforce an agreement to those who have considered the agreement. In a first case, Tweddle v. Atkinson, it was concluded that because a son had ignored his father-in-law`s promise to pay the son £200, he could not enforce the promise. [127] Given the principle that the power to perform an obligation should reflect the power that has a legitimate interest in fulfilling it, a 1996 law commission report entitled “Privity of Contract: Contracts for the Benefit of Third Parties” recommended that, while courts should have the freedom to develop customary law, however, that some of the most egregious injustices should be eliminated. [128] This led to the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999. Under article 1, a third party may enforce an agreement if it purports to grant a benefit to the third party, either individually or to a member as a group, and there is no express provision that the person was not intended to enforce it. [129] In this regard, there is a heavy burden on the party who claims that enforcement was not intended by a third party.
[130] A third party has the same remedies as a person who is aware of an agreement and who can assert both positive benefits and limitations of liability, such as . B an exclusion clause. [131] A third party`s rights can then only be terminated or withdrawn without the third party`s consent if it is reasonably foreseeable that the third party would invoke them. [132] The reforms of the 1999 Act mean that a number of old cases would be decided differently today. In Beswick v Beswick,[134] while the House of Lords ruled that Ms Beswick could expressly enforce a promise from her nephew to her late husband to pay her £5 a week as a director, the 1999 Act would also allow her to assert claims as a third party. In Scruttons Ltd v. Midland Silicones Ltd,[135] it would have been possible for a stevedoring company to benefit from a restrictive clause in a contract between a carrier and the owner of a damaged drum containing chemicals. Lord Denning disagreed and argued for the abolition of the rule, and Lord Reid gave the opinion that if a bill of lading explicitly granted the Stevedors the benefit of a restriction that gives the Stevedores the power to do so, and that “the difficulties in taking into account the move of the Stauer were overcome”, then the Stauer could benefit. In The Eurymedon,[136] Lord Reid`s inventive solution was applied, in which some Stevedores also wanted to benefit from an exclusion clause after abandoning a drill, the consideration being that the Stevedores fulfilled their already existing contractual obligation in favor of the third party (the owner of the drill). .