Fudamental Law

1. Office Supply brings a claim for breach of contract against CompuHelp. Discuss whether Office Supply and CompuHelp formed an enforceable contract, AND whether Office Supply is likely to win its law suit.

Answer:

The legal issue revolving around this case is that whether a valid legally-binding contract has been entered between Office Supply and CompuHelp, and, if that is the case, whether Office Supply is able to sue CompuHelp for its breach of contract.

In general, a legally binding contract is an agreement made between two or more person, by which rights are acquired by one or more to acts or forbearances on the part of the other or others. In order for a simple contract to arise, there must be a negotiation of agreement in the form of an offer and an unqualified acceptance of that offer, in that and offer is defined as an expression of a willingness to contract on certain terms made with the intention that it shall become binding as soon as it is accepted by the person to whom it is addressed, and that an acceptance is defined as the positive, unqualified assent to all the terms of the offer. In other words, it must be final, unconditional and communicated to the offeror, either orally, in writing or inferred from conduct. Besides the offer and acceptance, a consideration must be promised between two parties, in that a consideration is defined as an act or forbearance of one party, or the promise thereof, is the price for which the promise of the other bought, and the promise thus given for value is enforceable.

When Sophie from CompuHelp emailed the standard formal contract to John from Office Supply, she was making an offer to specific buyer rather than invitation to treat. After that, John read the contract, agreed the terms, signed the contract and emailed it back to Sophie. This action indicated the acceptance of John responding to the offer made by Sophie. Although the contract was not signed by anyone at CompuHelp, a prima facie contract is still formed between Office Supply and CompuHelp at this situation because there are both offer and acceptance. However, such “state of affairs” does not form a legally-binding contract yet. In fact that Office Supply gave nothing in exchange, but the price listed in the contract is $000.00 hourly rate, so there are no consideration can be made.

However, John expected the special promotion would save his business money and he used the money he expected to save to buy new computers for his business. Under the rule of Promissory Estoppel, if a promisor had made a promise to a promise intending that the promise be acted on by the promise, then the promisor would be stopped from going back on his promise by the court, Central London Property Trust Ltd v High Tree House Ltd [1947]. In this case, John would suffer financially because he trusted CompuHelp for the special promotion which leaded him to the action of computers purchase.

On balance, although it seems to be no consideration made between Office Supply and CompuHelp, under the rule of Promissory Estoppel, Office Supply is likely to succeed in proving loses due to the reliance on the contract. In my opinion, Office Supply is likely to win its law suit.

2. Discuss whether CompuHelp has any defenses to Office Supply’s breach of contract claim.

Answer:

The