The doctrine of privity of contract is a common law principle which provides that a contract cannot confer rights or impose obligations upon any person who is not a party to the contract.
James Richard Atkin, Baron Atkin,, commonly known as Dick Atkin, was a lawyer and judge of Irish, Welsh and Australian origin, who practised in England and Wales. He always thought of himself as a Queenslander, and was President of the London Welsh Trust from 1938 to 1944.
Consideration is an English common law concept within the law of contract, and is a necessity for simple contracts. The concept of consideration has been adopted by other common law jurisdictions, including the US.
Foakes v Beer[1884] UKHL 1 is an English contract law case, which applied the controversial pre-existing duty rule in the context of part payments of debts. It is a leading case from the House of Lords on the legal concept of consideration. It established the rule that prevents parties from discharging an obligation by part performance, affirming Pinnel's Case (1602) 5 Co Rep 117a. In that case it was said that "payment of a lesser sum on the day [i.e., on or after the due date of a money debt] cannot be any satisfaction of the whole."
Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co Ltd v Selfridge & Co Ltd[1915] UKHL 1, [1915] AC 847 is an English contract law case, with relevance for UK competition law decided in the House of Lords. It established that an agreement for resale price maintenance was unenforceable as a matter of privity of contract.
Caparo Industries PLC v Dickman[1990] UKHL 2 is a leading English tort law case on the test for a duty of care. The House of Lords, following the Court of Appeal, set out a "three-fold test". In order for a duty of care to arise in negligence:
The pre-existing duty rule is an aspect of consideration within the law of contract. Originating in England the concept of consideration has been adopted by other jurisdictions, including the US.
London Drugs Ltd v Kuehne & Nagel International Ltd, [1992] 3 SCR 299 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on privity of contract.
Consideration is a concept of English common law and is a necessity for simple contracts but not for special contracts. The concept has been adopted by other common law jurisdictions.
English contract law is a body of law regulating contracts in England and Wales. With its roots in the lex mercatoria and the activism of the judiciary during the industrial revolution, it shares a heritage with countries across the Commonwealth, and to a lesser extent the United States. It has also experienced changes because of the UK's past membership of the European Union and current membership of international organisations like Unidroit. Any agreement that is enforceable in court is a contract. Because a contract is a voluntary obligation, in contrast to paying compensation for a tort and restitution to reverse unjust enrichment, English law places a high value on ensuring people have truly consented to the deals that bind them in court, so long as they comply with statutory and human rights.
A contract is a legally binding document between at least two parties that defines and governs the rights and duties of the parties to an agreement. A contract is legally enforceable because it meets the requirements and approval of the law. A contract typically involves the exchange of goods, service, money, or promise of any of those. "Breach of contract", means that the law will have to award the injured party either the access to legal remedies such as damages or cancellation.
Williams v Roffey Bros & Nicholls (Contractors) Ltd[1989] EWCA Civ 5 is a leading English contract law case. It decided that in varying a contract, a promise to perform a pre-existing contractual obligation will constitute good consideration so long as a benefit is conferred upon the 'promiseor'. This was a departure from the previously established principle that promises to perform pre-existing contractual obligations could not be good consideration.
South Australia Asset Management Corporation v York Montague Ltd and Banque Bruxelles Lambert SA v Eagle Star Insurance Co Ltd [1996] UKHL 10 is a joined English contract law case on causation and remoteness of damage. It arose out of the property crash in the early 1990s, whereby banks were suing valuers for overpricing houses in order to recover the lost market value. Owners themselves often had little or no money, since they had fallen victim to negative equity, so mortgage lenders would pursue a valuer instead to recover some losses. The legal principle arising from the case is often referred to as the "SAAMCO principle".
Stilk v Myrick [1809] EWHC KB J58 is an English contract law case heard in the King's Bench on the subject of consideration. In his verdict, the judge, Lord Ellenborough decided that in cases where an individual was bound to do a duty under an existing contract, that duty could not be considered valid consideration for a new contract. It has been distinguished from Williams v Roffey Bros & Nicholls (Contractors) Ltd, which suggested that situations formerly handled by consideration could instead be handled by the doctrine of economic duress.
Interpreting contracts in English law is an area of English contract law, which concerns how the courts decide what an agreement means. It is settled law that the process is based on the objective view of a reasonable person, given the context in which the contracting parties made their agreement. This approach marks a break with previous a more rigid modes of interpretation before the 1970s, where courts paid closer attention to the formal expression of the parties' intentions and took more of a literal view of what they had said.
Vicarious liability in English law is a doctrine of English tort law that imposes strict liability on employers for the wrongdoings of their employees. Generally, an employer will be held liable for any tort committed while an employee is conducting their duties. This liability has expanded in recent years following the decision in Lister v Hesley Hall Ltd to better cover intentional torts, such as sexual assault and deceit. Historically, it was held that most intentional wrongdoings were not in the course of ordinary employment, but recent case law suggests that where an action is closely connected with an employee's duties, an employer can be found vicariously liable. The leading case is now the Supreme Court decision in Catholic Child Welfare Society v Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, which emphasised the concept of "enterprise risk".
Lister v Hesley Hall Ltd [2001] UKHL 22 is an English tort law case, creating a new precedent for finding where an employer is vicariously liable for the torts of their employees. Prior to this decision, it had been found that sexual abuse by employees of others could not be seen as in the course of their employment, precluding recovery from the employer. The majority of the House of Lords however overruled the Court of Appeal, and these earlier decisions, establishing that the "relative closeness" connecting the tort and the nature of an individual's employment established liability.
Deloitte & Touche v Livent Inc , 2017 SCC 63 is a leading case of the Supreme Court of Canada concerning the duty of care that auditors have toward their clients during the course of a professional engagement.
Huang v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2007] UKHL 11 is a UK constitutional law case, concerning judicial review.
Robinson v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police[2018] UKSC 4 is a leading English tort law case on the test for finding a duty of care. An elderly woman was injured by two police officers attempting to arrest a suspect and claimed that the police owed her a duty of care not to be put in danger. The UK Supreme Court found that the police did owe a duty of care in this case.
