Scheme of work: Contract law This scheme of work suggests how to deliver the Contract law section of our A-level Law specification (7162). 3.4 Contract law Week Specification content and skills Activities and resources Notes 1 Offer and acceptance: unilateral and bilateral contracts offers invitations to treat. Explain and give examples of unilateral and bilateral contracts. Analyse the differences between invitations to treat and offers. Read the following What principles can we take from this case? Go onto the following and complete the quiz. Identify the reasons why many invitations to treat cannot be offers. Identify some examples of invitations to treat and offers eg newspapers, retail websites and supermarket ‘offers’. 2 Offer and acceptance (continued): lapse of offers acceptance postal rule. Explain lapse of offers and acceptance. Analyse the differences between the normal rules of acceptance and the postal rule. Be careful to identify when the postal rule will apply and explain the exceptions. Prepare a chart of the key offer and acceptance cases. 3 Theory of contract law – offer and acceptance: offers, unilateral offers and invitations to treat acceptances, including the postal rule. Identification of a range of issues. Analysis of the issues: justifications and criticisms. Students will need both examples and discussion of any issues raised. Analyse the postal rule in terms of its historical context, modern forms of electronic communication and the world of 24-hour business with communications through the night.
4 Consideration: past consideration adequacy of consideration sufficiency of consideration. Explain the three sets of rules governing consideration. Analyse the reasons for, and the meaning of, ‘practical benefit’. Give examples of what might amount to ‘practical benefit’. Find a media story where something has been sold for a nominal sum. 5 Privity and intention to create legal relations: doctrine of privity intention. Explain privity and intention. Analyse the extent to which the Contract (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 replaces the common law. Give examples of when the Contract (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 might apply in ordinary life (eg a gift sent directly to the recipient). Establish when the normal presumptions on commercial and family/social contracts not apply. 6 Economic duress: economic duress (definition and remedies) theory of contract law – consideration, privity and economic duress. Identify and illustrate the elements necessary for economic duress. Analyse the available remedies. Compare the options of economic duress and consideration in altering a bargain. Prepare a chart showing the elements necessary for economic duress and illustrate each element from the cases. Students will need to identify what amounts to illegitimate pressure for the purposes of economic duress. 7 Discharge of a contract: performance breach conditions, warranties and innominate terms. Explain the rule of entire performance and identify the exception. Define breach. Explain the need for innominate terms. Construct a flowchart as a means of deciding whether a) a contract has been breached and b) the appropriate remedy. Think of some simple hypothetical breach scenarios and ask students to Link this topic with remedies for breach of contract. Discuss the consequences of liability for breach of contract being strict (eg a supermarket selling branded but defective goods).
terms implied into a contract to supply services. remedies in ss20, 23 and 24 CRA 2015. Describe the implied terms contained in ss49 and 52 CRA 2015 and the remedies in CRA 2015. examples and examples from ordinary life. 12 Theory of contract law: nature and effectiveness of contract remedies nature and effectiveness of consumer remedies. Identification of range of issues. Analysis of the issues: justifications and criticisms. Consider whether the reforms in the CRA 2015 meet the criticisms of the previous law, raised by bodies such as the Law Commission. Students will need both examples and discussion of any issues raised. 13 Exclusion clauses: common law controls statutory controls theory of contract law – freedom of contract and the need to protect the consumer theory of contract law – nature and effectiveness of exclusion clauses. Explain rules governing incorporation and (briefly) construction. Distinguish the different statutory protections. Identification of a range of issues. Analysis of the issues: justifications and criticisms. Be aware of incorporation by course of dealing: give examples from the cases and from ordinary life. Students will need both examples and discussion of any issues raised.