| Moffat v Moffat | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Court | Court of Appeal of New Zealand |
| Full case name | Moffat v Moffat |
| Decided | 18 April 1984 |
| Citation(s) | [1984] 1 NZLR 600 |
| Court membership | |
| Judge(s) sitting | McMullin, Somers, Hardie Boys JJ |
| Keywords | |
| unconscionable bargains | |
Moffat v Moffat [1984] 1 NZLR 600 is a leading New Zealand case regarding unconscionable bargains. [1]
Mr and Mrs Moffat after 18 years of marriage, separated and entered into a separation agreement. The separation agreement was highly one sided in favour of Mr Moffat, which not only granted him full custody of their 4 children, but also the ownership of the matrimonial house, and all its possessions. Prior to accepting, Mrs Moffat was advised by her husband's solicitor to get legal advice, but declined to do so. She signed an acknowledgement confirming this.
Mrs Moffat subsequently came to her senses and tried to have this one sided agreement set aside due to it being an unconscionable bargain. She argued, that when she entered into the agreement, she was unwell both physically and mentally, thought she might have been pregnant to a man she was having an affair with, had not taken legal advice, nor did she know the value of her interest in their house and claimed that her husband was aware of all this, and took advantage of her situation by making her accept his separation agreement.
The Court of Appeal ruled that the husband took unconscionable advantage of his wife's circumstances, and accordingly set aside the separation agreement.
A prenuptial agreement, antenuptial agreement, or premarital agreement is a written contract entered into by a couple before marriage or a civil union that enables them to select and control many of the legal rights they acquire upon marrying, and what happens when their marriage eventually ends by death or divorce. Couples enter into a written prenuptial agreement to supersede many of the default marital laws that would otherwise apply in the event of divorce, such as the laws that govern the division of property, retirement benefits, savings, and the right to seek alimony with agreed-upon terms that provide certainty and clarify their marital rights. A premarital agreement may also contain waivers of a surviving spouse's right to claim an elective share of the estate of the deceased spouse.
Unconscionability is a doctrine in contract law that describes terms that are so extremely unjust, or overwhelmingly one-sided in favor of the party who has the superior bargaining power, that they are contrary to good conscience. Typically, an unconscionable contract is held to be unenforceable because no reasonable or informed person would otherwise agree to it. The perpetrator of the conduct is not allowed to benefit, because the consideration offered is lacking, or is so obviously inadequate, that to enforce the contract would be unfair to the party seeking to escape the contract.
Balfour v Balfour [1919] 2 KB 571 is a leading English contract law case. It held that there is a rebuttable presumption against an intention to create a legally enforceable agreement when the agreement is domestic in nature.
Williams v. Walker-Thomas Furniture Co., 350 F.2d 445, was a court opinion, written by Judge J. Skelly Wright, that had a definitive discussion of unconscionability as a defense to enforcement of contracts in American contract law. As a staple of first-year law school contract law courses, it has been briefed extensively.
Lloyds Bank Ltd v Bundy is a decision of the English Court of Appeal in English contract law, on undue influence. One of the three judges hearing the case, Lord Denning MR advanced the argument that under English law, all impairments of autonomy could be collected under a single principle of "inequality of bargaining power."
Unconscionability in English law is a field of contract law and the law of trusts, which precludes the enforcement of voluntary obligations unfairly exploiting the unequal power of the consenting parties. "Inequality of bargaining power" is another term used to express essentially the same idea for the same area of law, which can in turn be further broken down into cases on duress, undue influence and exploitation of weakness. In these cases, where someone's consent to a bargain was only procured through duress, out of undue influence or under severe external pressure that another person exploited, courts have felt it was unconscionable to enforce agreements. Any transfers of goods or money may be claimed back in restitution on the basis of unjust enrichment subject to certain defences.
Merritt v Merritt [1970] EWCA Civ 6 is an English contract law case, on the matter of creating legal relations. While under the principles laid out in Balfour v Balfour, domestic agreements between spouses are rarely legally enforceable, this principle was rebutted where two spouses who formed an agreement over their matrimonial home were not on good terms.
Cobbe v Yeoman's Row Management Ltd[2008] UKHL 55 is a House of Lords case in English land law and relates to proprietary estoppel in the multi-property developer context. The court of final appeal awarded the project manager £150,000 on a quantum meruit basis for unjust enrichment because Yeoman's Row had received the benefit of his services without paying for that. The court refused to find or acknowledge a binding contract, prior arrangement with a third party or promise, overturning a £2m award on the basis of a possible lien arising from a promise over the property. The court found a non-binding agreement in principle, entirely subject to the owner's final say to take into account for example their view of the market; this was the basis on the facts on which the parties were proceeding.
Royal Bank of Scotland plc v Etridge [2001] UKHL 44 is a leading case relevant for English land law and English contract law on the circumstances under which actual and presumed undue influence can be argued to vitiate consent to a contract.
Alec Lobb (Garages) Ltd. v. Total Oil (GB) Ltd.[1984] EWCA Civ 2 is an English contract law case relating to undue influence.
Commercial Bank of Australia Ltd v Amadio, is a seminal case in Australian contract law and equity, in which the High Court held that unconscionable dealing due to a lack of knowledge or education and the consequent imbalance in bargaining power could lead to a transaction being set aside.
Futter v HM Revenue and Customs [2013] UKSC 26 is an English trusts law case, concerning the fiduciary duty to take into account relevant factors, and disregard irrelevant factors. It held that trustees who act on professional advice do not breach this duty, and that even if they do, the failure to have proper regard to relevant matters only ever renders a transaction voidable. For a transaction to be wholly set aside, as in common mistake, a decision by a trustee must be based on a truly "basic" mistake.
Nichols v Jessup [1986] 1 NZLR 226, is a New Zealand case regarding unconscionable bargains, and it set the threshold for an unconscionable bargain is that the stronger party did not have to have actual knowledge of the other party having a disability, but merely that the stronger party should have had suspicions that the other party had a disability.
P v P [1957] NZLR 854 is an often cited High Court of New Zealand case regarding promissory estoppel as far as meeting the rights are suspended and not terminated, one of the seven requirements in order for this to apply. It reinforces the English case of Tool Metal Mfg Co ltd v Tungsten Electric Co Ltd [1955] 2 All ER 657.
Phillips v Phillips [1993] 3 NZLR 159; (1993) 10 FRNZ 110 is a cited court case in New Zealand, where both parties entering into a contract make the same mistake when a contract is formed, under section 6(1)(a)(ii) of the Contractual Mistakes Act 1977.
National Westminster Bank plc v Morgan[1985] UKHL 2 is a judicial decision of the House of Lords relating to English contract law and the doctrine of undue influence. The case is most well known for the comments of Lord Scarman about the supposed requirement of "manifest disadvantage" to set aside a contract for undue influence.
Undue influence in English law is a field of contract law and property law whereby a transaction may be set aside if it was procured by the influence exerted by one person on another, such that the transaction cannot "fairly be treated the expression of [that person's] free will".
CIBC Mortgages plc v Pitt[1993] UKHL 7 is a decision of the House of Lords relating to undue influence. The decision confirmed that a person did not need to suffer "manifest disadvantage" under a transaction in order to challenge it for actual undue influence.
Macleod v Macleod [2008] UKPC 64 was a judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in an appeal originating from the Isle of Man. It made clear that postnuptial agreements in the Isle of Man cannot be varied by a court other than for sufficient policy reasons. Although technically only applying to Manx postnuptial agreements, the judgment is treated with authority in the United Kingdom.
Lafler v. Cooper, 566 U.S. 156 (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court clarified the Sixth Amendment standard for reversing convictions due to ineffective assistance of counsel during plea bargaining. The Court ruled that when a lawyer's ineffective assistance leads to the rejection of a plea agreement, a defendant is entitled to relief if the outcome of the plea process would have been different with competent advice. In such cases, the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment requires the trial judge to exercise discretion to determine an appropriate remedy.
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