Voluntary Mid-Term
Attached is a mid-term exam. If you wish, you may complete it. If you return your answer to my assistant, Youssra El Ayadi, yayadi@law.miami.edu, before 12p.m. on October 8, I will read it and comment but not grade. If you send them later, they are not timely filed and will not be considered.
Please review the two mid-terms located on “Prior Posts.”
http://contractslawinaction.law.miami.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/24k-mex.docx
Attached below is an answer to this hypo:
I saw that some of you were interested in the discussion of Kant. Below is a PowerPoint that discusses that point further. Viewing it is unnecessary for this course, but may be of some philosophical interest and I am open to discussing it in office hours. You will not be missing out on anything that will affect your grade should you choose not to view it.
http://contractslawinaction.law.miami.edu/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/contractskant.ppt
I will be holding office hours via zoom on Wednesdays from 4-5:30. The link below is for 15 minute segments, which normally suffices. If your issue or concern will take more than 15 minutes, feel free to sign up for two sessions, when available. If you cannot meet at these times on Wednesdays, please feel free to email me. I look forward to continuing the class conversations.
My assistant is Youssra El Ayadi, yayadi@law.miami.edu.miami.edu, please contact her regarding absences or other administrative needs. You already should have been receiving communications from her. If you are not on her email list for this course, please contact her.
I have described the first year of law school as boot camp for a thirty-year hitch. You are supposed to work incredibly hard. Hence it is a boot camp. It’s material is foundational. The required courses were not chosen accidentally, but are foundational to the rest of your career. I have compared the first year of law school to the first year of medical school and that you should think of yourself in that manner. A doctor who doesn’t understand the fundamentals of anatomy or pathology will never master the courses that follow and will be a much poorer doctor as a result.
You are studying for your future clients. You want to be prepared to be able to help them. Keep your eye on them.
And remember that contracts are everywhere, from plea bargains, to wills, to family disputes to differing forms of business and have tax, immigration and other implications.
_________
1. How do you obtain a statement of intent from a breaching party? And if these are hard to obtain, does that mean most people trying to sue end up relying on anticipatory repudiation? And how does the non-breaching party do these usually? Is it a conversation or a document asking the breaching party to admit whether they will materially breach or not? I guess I am confused as to how anticipatory repudiation looks like in real life. — If you are a client, your lawyer will advise you to send a letter (normally – in old days – return receipt requested), detailing grounds for insecurity and asking for assurances. In real life, people say, “Are you going to do what you promised?” Or “I’m insecure, can you convince me that you will perform?” Or, more often, a party says, “F U, I’m out of this contract. I don’t ever want to do anything with you ever again.” Or “You broke your promise. I’m not going to do what I promised”. This last one raises the question of who breached first. That person is the breaching party.
2. What is adequate assurance of due performance under RST 2nd section 251? Illustrations 7 and 8 are clear, but is the obligor’s word (over the phone) sufficient assurance that he will perform? — Like all determinations of whether facts are sufficient to support a legal conclusion, such as the finding of “adequacy,” the answer must be “it depends.” Given the situation, would a reasonable insecure party be assured?
_______
1. I am having a difficult time differentiating equitable estoppel and promissory estoppel – First, equitable estoppel refers to statements of fact and promissory estoppel to promises. Both involve reliance. Once you are justified in relying on someone else’s statement of fact, they are estopped from denying the truth of the matter they admitted. It is a general priciple of law that has application in this course, but also in many others. Promissory estoppel is a contract doctrine. It makes a promise enforceable – it creates a contractual obligation. It is part of what I call Finger 1.