Can I please have this Chapter Outline, { the main points }. Book is called Legal Concepts in Sport by Linda Jean Carpenter. As a reference I uploaded all the pages of the chapter.

Chapter 8 Contracts: "Put It in Writing" Most contractual relationships fall into one of two main categories: personal service contracts and contracts for goods. This chapter will deal with the general concepts involved in contractual obligations. Chapter 9 will discuss contracts for the selling and purchasing of goods, and Chapter 10 will discuss contracts for per- sonal service in which one person agrees to work for another. The obligations or reciprocal promises created when people enter into any contract are defined by the parties. Bargaining and negotiating produce the recipe rocal responsibilities that each party to a contract owes to the other. If you don't like the price of a new volleyball, you walk away. Elements of a Contract Specific requirements must exist in order for a contract to be enforceable by the courts. These elements are as follows: There must be a meeting of the minds between the buyer and the seller. . The subject of the contract must be a legal subject, . There must be an offer. There must be an acceptance, either by word or deed. Some form of consideration must be involved, The parties must have the legal capacity to enter into a contract. . The terms of the contract must be sufficiently precise. Meeting of the Minds In order for a contractual relationship to exist, there must be an understanding or meeting of the minds of the parties. If you think you are purchasing volleyballs and the seller thinks you want basketballs, there is no contract even if you agree on the price, because there is no meeting of the minds. After all the bargaining and negotiating, both the buyer and the seller must understand and agree to their own obligations and the obligations of the other.110 Legal Concepts in Sport: A Primer Even tho Legal Subject If a contract is made to perform an illegal act or purchase illegal merchandise time, it can b that contract is not enforceable by the courts. I'm not sure who would be dumb expiration o enough to ask the court to enforce a contract to shave points in a championship be conveyed game or to purchase anabolic steroids, but if someone did try to gain the court if you accep help in enforcing such a contract, that person would be unsuccessful. but didn't offerer's pr What Offer and Acceptance In order for a contract to exist, there must be both an offer to sell by the seller the poten and an acceptance of that offer by the buyer. This seems so simple that it doesn't offer ope need to be said, yet many of the contract cases that find their way to courts involve promises the question of whether there was an offer and an acceptance. 1. Is this an offer? 1. A sporting goods dealer says to you, "I'll bet I could get you those uni. 2. forms for $30 each." 2. A sporting goods dealer says to you, "I'll sell you 20 of those uniforms for $30 each." the off Is this an acceptance? too b 1. You tell a sporting goods dealer, "If our school makes the NCAA Final buyer Four we will buy 20 uniforms at $30 each." that 2. You tell a sporting goods dealer who has offered to sell you 10 composition purc covered volleyballs at $10 each, "We accept your offer, but please make the covers leather." eknamela okay Other common questions concerning offers and acceptances that frequently gat arise are as follows: sol Are catalogs offers? We act as though a catalog is a list of offers, but in most CO situations it is not. Our acceptance of a catalog's typographically erroneous price does not obligate the seller to sell the merchandise at that price because the catalog is only an invitation to make an offer. When we send in an "order," we are really only offering to buy something at the price listed in the catalog. The seller may then accept our offer or reject it. If our offer is accepted, the seller can convey that acceptance to us by words or by deeds. Thus the acceptance can be perfected when the seller gives us confirmation of the order and its accepted terms or by merely shipping our order. How long is an offer in force? Unless the person making the offer says other- wise, an offer stays open and is capable of being accepted for a "reasonable" period of time. If the offerer specifies, "This offer is good only until midnight, January 14," the offer will not be capable of being accepted on January 15 even if the offer had not been in force a reasonable period of time by its expiration at midnight January 14.Contracts: "Put It in Writing" al merchandise, would be dumb Even though an offer is usually considered open for a reasonable period of championship I can be affirmatively revoked at any time, including a time earlier than the thiration of the reasonable period of time. However, that early revocation must ful. gain the court's Conveyed to a potential acceptor before the revocation is valid. In other words, you accept an offer and the offerer says, "I decided to revoke that offer yesterday offerer's protests. ify didn't tell you, your acceptance is valid and a contract exists in spite of the ll by the seller What is an option? An option is a separate contractual arrangement whereby that it doesn't the potential buyer pays the seller a specific sum so that the seller will hold the ourts involve ofer open for a specific period of time for the potential buyer. The reciprocal promises made in an option contract are the offerer promises to hold the offer open for a specified period of time for the potential buyer, and those uni- promise. 2. the offeree promises to pay a specified sum to the offerer for the offerer's What happens if either the offerer or the offeree backs out of the option? If the offerer/seller decides not to sell the item during the term of the option, that's no bad for the offerer/seller. The seller is obligated to sell the item to the offereel CAA Final buyer during the option period. An option means that the buyer is guaranteed that the purchase can be made for the period of time for which the option was mposition purchased . make the If the offeree/buyer decides not to buy during the term of the option, that's okay. All the buyer will lose is the money spent on the option. Does the use of unsolicited goods constitute an acceptance and thus obli- equently gate the user to pay for the goods? No. The technique of sending someone un- solicited goods is less popular now than in the past, but it still creates confusion in most concerning the existence of an obligation to pay for the goods. If a seller of sporting goods mails an unsolicited warm-up suit to you and you us price wear it, you are not obligated to pay for the suit when a bill later arrives. Neither catalog are you obligated to return the suit. Unsolicited goods may be considered gifts by e really the recipient. You can elect to keep them or return them, but you have no obliga- er may tion to pay for them. Why? You have no obligation to pay because you have not ey that 1 when entered into a contract. merely Consideration In most contracts, consideration means the exchange of something of value. If other- you enter into a contract to buy field hockey sticks, the money you pay for them eriod uary becomes the consideration. If there is no consideration, there is no contract. That doesn't mean that a offer contract fails to exist just because you failed to keep your promise to pay for the light, hockey sticks. It does mean that if there was never any promise to pay for them,there would never have been a contract in the first place; ofyou promised by precise Terms failed to carry out your promise, you would have breached the contract, and all If the partie seller could enlist the court's aid in enforcing your obligations under the contre tity of goods to If you said to someone, "I volunteer to coach the youth softball team" an agree, or if not you failed to do so, you may have broken the young athletes hearts and appeard instance, if un irresponsible, but you would not have broken a contract. In the absence of red dicated, the co sideration given on the part of the youth sports team or league (such as a promis to be purchas However, to pay you for coaching or a promise to arrange college credit for you as a studie coach), there is no contract. ing price an discovered Legal Capacity would be u Minors can make enforceable contracts, but minors cannot be the subject of of specifici contractual enforcement. This means that a contract with a minor is voidable by them. In the minor, but it is not void from the outset. If the minor later has a change of the court mind, the minor can void the contract, and the other party cannot enforce the equitable minor's promises and obligations (except for necessaries such as food and shelter) (amount, The enforcement of contracts with minors is a one-way street. Such contracts are ple that only enforceable by the minor. Therefore, it is very risky to make contracts with the cont minors. is the va Let's assume that your high school's athletes want ceived. Contracts with minors to order letter jackets with their names embroidered then or are VOIDABLE, not on the front and you generously offer to place a group or ser void, from the outset. order with the supplier of the jackets. After the jack- tence ets arrive, Pat, one of the athletes, says the jacket idea provid is no longer appealing and refuses to pay you for the fatall jacket. Can you force Pat to pay? No. Pat is a minor, and Pat has elected to void a contract that was, from the outset, voidable. Unless your name is Pat, you will have a useless jacket to serve as a reminder of the legal truth that contracts with minors are voidable. Pat's jacket will also remind you that it would have been a better idea to make your jacket pur- chase arrangements with the parents of the athletes rather than with the athletes. pro If the parents changed their minds about purchasing the jacket, you would be able to enforce their promise to pay. As we've discussed above, contracts with minors are voidable,' but so are con- tracts with severely retarded individuals or insane persons due to their lack of legal capacity (the capacity to understand the contractual process). A voidable contract can be enforced by the party lacking legal capacity but not by the other party. A void contract cannot be enforced by either party. 'Contractual exculpatory agreements such as waivers are problematic when used with minors because of the minor's ability to void such contracts at any time, including after an injury. The use of waivers is discussed in Chapters 6 and 14. 2Contracts with the insane used to be considered void, but now they are generally conside ered voidable.Precise Terms Contracts: "Put It in Writing" If the parties to a contract inadvertently are vague about the price or quan- 113 ity of goods to be purchased, the contract might fail unless the parties can later ree, or if not, the court can fill in the blanks with some degree of certainty. For instance, if uniforms were ordered ordered for the "team" but no specific number was in- dicated, the court might feel comfortable in deciding that the number of uniforms to be purchased was the same as the number of athletes on the roster. However, the failure of the parties to be precise about material terms include ing price and quantity often dooms the contract. If the failure of the contract is discovered after the uniforms are used and the courts cannot fill in the blanks, it would be unfair to the seller to announce that no contract ever existed for lack of specificity. The seller would receive back used uniforms and no payment for them. In order to avoid such unfair results, the court in such circumstances may apply the equitable relief of quantum meruit. Quantum Elements of a Contract (amount) meruit (deserved) is a legal princi- In order for a contract to ple that allows the court to determine not what exist, six elements must be found: the contract would have said, but rather what Meeting of the minds is the value of the benefit, goods, or services re- Legal subject ceived. The court determines this amount and Offer and acceptance then orders the recipient of the benefit, goods, Consideration or services to pay it to the provider. The exis- Legal capacity of parties tence of the legal principle of quantum meruit Precise terms provides for a degree of fairness in the face of a fatally imprecise contract. When Something Goes Wrong with a Contractual Relationship When a contract exists, but one party to the contract fails to carry out the promises made, the contract is breached. There are two levels of breach: immate- rial and material. If a breach is immaterial, its existence does not cause the rest of the contract to fail. If, for example, the contract calls for the goods to be shipped by United Parcel Next-Day Air, and the seller instead ships via Federal Express Next-Day Air, the breach would be immaterial. If a personal service contract calls for a teacher to start class at 9 a.m., yet three times during the term the teacher starts the class late at 9:03 a.m., the breach would also be immaterial. Can you think of breaches that would be material breaches? How about if, in- stead of sending the package by either Federal Express or United Parcel Next-Day Air, the seller let the goods sit on the loading dock for two months? How about if, instead of starting the class a few minutes late, the teacher failed to show up at all114 Legal Concepts in Sport: A Primer for a month? Certainly, through these extremes it is easy to candidate what is a trial and an immaterial breach, but often the courts are needed to determin ma. Millerence between less obvious alterations in expected performance of a contthe Memory Te 1. True/Fal I Want My Money Back! Material breaches are more significant than immaterial breaches and, there fore, relieve the victim of the breach from carrying out promises made. Const the scenario in which you ordered new uniforms for a January 14 champinsider game, and the contract included a clause noting that the uniforms had to benish ered by January 13 because they were needed for January 14. The uniforms arrived 2. True on January 15. The tardy arrival would be a material breach because the tardiness defeats the purpose of the initial contract, and it would be unfair to expect you to have to pay for uniforms that you no longer need. If, on the other hand, you did not inform the seller that the uniforms had to be delivered by a particular date, you would need to pay for the uniforms. It is fair to the seller for the buyer to be 3. T1 picky about a delivery date, but only if the buyer has informed the seller of the fact that time is of the essence. Once a material breach has occurred, the victim can sue for breach of con- tract. The victim can either seek damages for the breach, or something called spe- 4. cific performance can be granted by a court. Specific performance is a legal term meaning that the party who breached the contract will be ordered by the court to fulfill the contract totally. It is not often used, but in certain types of cases, it may be of greater use to the victim than would be money damages. For example, if you contracted to purchase a particular fitness facility because it was located right next to your swimming facility, you would want the court to force the seller to specifi cally perform (sell you the property) rather than simply pay money damages. In most breach of contract cases, the remedy is money damages. The amount of damages is determined by the court unless the contract has included a clause defining liquidated damages. Liquidated damages are not "fluid" or "watery" dam- ages but rather an amount of money one party will owe to the other in the case of breach. The amount of money to be paid is determined at the time of the making of the contract, not at the time of the breach. Including a clause in the contract identifying the amount of liquidated damages often encourages both parties to meet their obligations under the contract. (The amount of liquidated damages decided on needs to bear some relation to the actual expectation of the value of a breach rather than merely to serve as a penalty for the party who breaches.) If a breach occurs, the process of determining the compensation owed the victim has already been settled via liquidated damages