Part 1

You are working as a young financial advisor at AAA Pty Ltd, a large accounting firm in Australia. During a particularly busy week, your boss, Gayle, asked whether you could please look into the following two scenarios for her and provide answers to the questions below.

Gayle and her husband, Mark, have been married for 23 years. Gayle is the main income earner of the family, while Mark happily stays home to care for their 3 children. Each week, Gayle gives $850 to her husband to buy groceries for the family. Some weeks, the weekly shop costs less - in which case Mark spends any leftover money on seeing a movie or on drinks with friends at the pub. Last week, Gayle was surprised to learn that Mark spent $850 on a new fishing rod instead of buying groceries. Gayle wants to sue Mark for breach of contract.

Question 1: Analyze the law in relation to Intention to Create Legal Relations. (Suggested cases: Ermogenous v Greek Orthodox Church of SA; Jones v Padavatton; Todd v Nicol; Rose & Crompton v Frank)

Question 2: Apply the law to the above scenario and conclude whether you think Gayle will be successful if she decided to sue Mark.

Part 2

Secondly, Gayle tells you that she is concerned about something she heard on her way to work last week. Apparently, one of AAA's new clients, BBB Pty Ltd lied when they gave AAA a verbal confirmation that they signed AAA's service contract - meaning, AAA may be unable to enforce payment for the estimated $250,000 worth of labour already performed under the invalid contract; and close to $50,000 worth of disbursements that AAA already paid to various courts and government departments on behalf of BBB.

Question 3: What is Promissory Estoppel and how does it help to prevent a party from suffering harm under an invalid contract. (Suggested case:Waltons v Maher; plus one additional Promissory Estoppel case that is not mentioned in the slides. Pleasedo notinclude information about other Estoppel types such as Estoppel by Representation, Proprietary Estoppel, Estoppel by Convention etc)

Question 4: Apply the law to the above scenario and conclude whether you think AAA Pty Ltd will be successful if it asked the court for an order for Promissory Estoppel.