Case 1

By any reasonable standard, the 1972 Datsun 240Z is a thing of beauty.

Little Billy Johnson, age 14, recently came into an inheritance when his grandmother passed away. He and his dad, Johnny Johnson, always loved these cars.

Little Billy was walking home from school and saw one for sale in Jack's driveway. He bought it for $12,000. Little Billy had Jack drive the car over to his house where Little Billy excitedly waited on the front step for his dad to get home. Johnny Johnson pulled into the driveway and saw the car, running over to take a look. That's when Little Billy told him that "I bought it dad". Johnny was not amused.

Assume the car has a fair market value of $20,000. What are Johnny Johnson's options?

Case 2:

Jughead agrees to re-furbish Archie's commercial grade barbequefor $500. Clean it up and replace any failing parts. Archie has a family reunion and the barbeque failed resulting in thousands of dollars of ruined food. What clause could Jughead put in the contract with Archie to help protect him from damages?

Answer:

Case 3:

If Archie was catering a wedding and the failure of the barbeque led to him being sued for $25 000. What would an Indemnification clause mean if it were in the contract between Archie and Jughead instead of a Limitation of liability clause?

Answer:

Several years ago, Wayne had purchased a Fender electric guitar.Unfortunately, his lack of talent and unwillingness to practice got in the way of his dream of becoming a rock star.Last Saturday, his friend Garth was visiting Wayne's house and noticed the guitar in his basement (it had not been played for years).Garth could not believe his luck; he had found a classic Telecaster that was in "mint" condition.

Garth offered to purchase the guitar from his friend.Wayne agreed and wrote up the contract: "I offer to sell you my vintage Fender Telecaster. You must accept this offer in writing, and I must receive payment in cash before 5 p.m. on Wednesday." Garth signed accept the offer and left.He returned to Wayne's house on Tuesday evening with about $500 in cash.Wayne answered the door and told him that unfortunately, the guitar was "no longer available" as he had had decided to trade it in on a new set of drums at the local music shop.Garth was very upset.

"We had a contract" Garth shouted.Was he right?

Case 4

Jake had long coveted his elderly neighbor Elwood's property.It was larger than his lot and offered an unobstructed view of the Niagara escarpment.Elwood had often expressed to Jake that the property was getting harder and harder for him to manage on his own.One time, over coffee, Jake offered to purchase Elwood's property "whenever he was ready to sell."Elwood thought about it for a moment and asked, "How much?"

Jake told Elwood that he would arrange for three appraisals and that they would throw out the high and the low appraisal and that he would pay Elwood an amount equal to the appraisal "in the middle".With that Elwood said "deal" and shook his neighbour's hand.Two weeks later, Jake arrived at Elwood's home, to talkaboutthe timing of thethree appraisals, only to be told by Elwood that he had changed his mind and was now going to leave the property to his two children.What recourse does Jake have to enforce their contract?

Case #5

Tara is a photographer. She has been e-mailing back and forth with a potential client, Lily, who would like for Tara to take pictures for Lily's wedding. They have been going back and forth with offers and counter offers regarding the price, timelines for the day, number of pictures taken, and editing expectations. Lily just e-mailed Tara back an offer that Tara is agreeable to. Although Tara is in a hurry to get to another job and cannot e-mail back at this time, Tara reads the e-mail offer, nods and says, "great".

Glen has received his life insurance benefit offer to review. Although it has been months of the company asking him health questions and sending him for tests, he can finally say that he accepts the terms and has nothing more to report to the company. Although it is a strange practice for a life insurance company, the company has indicated that Glen only needs to respond if he does not agree with the terms or if he needs to add information to his profile, otherwise his policy will be instated (begin) and payments for the policy will be withdrawn at the end of each month. Therefore Glen does absolutely nothing after he reviews the offer (other than ensure his bank account is ready for the monthly withdrawals).

Only one of these examples indicates acceptance of the contract. Which? Why not the other?