Overview

Overview

In the previous section, the question was whether the parties had reached an agreement. The requirement that there be an agreement is what distinguishes the law of contracts from other areas of the law: the force of the law will apply only if the parties have agreed. In other words, we like to think that the rights and obligations of contract law are undertaken voluntarily. Compare this to other areas of law you have studied.

What you will see in this section of the book is that the law will not enforce all agreements. That is, people (and businesses) make promises all the time, ranging from "I will love you forever" to "I promise to give you my car," to "I will give you my car for $10,000," to "We will sell you 100 carpets every month for one year," to "I will buy your house for $250,000," to "Because you mowed my lawn last week, I will give you $50," to "I don't want you to have to work while you're in school, so I will give you $10,000." These are all promises (or agreements), and they can all be broken (or breached), but as should be obvious to you, the law does not provide a cause of action or remedy for every broken promise. Another way of saying that is that not all promises are legally enforceable. As you read these materials, think about why the law will enforce some promises and not others.

One way of thinking about this set of materials is from the perspective of the promisor: under what circumstances may someone say "yes, I made that promise" or "yes, I agreed to do that," and yet successfully argue that the law should not hold them accountable for their breach? For each of the cases in this section, first identify the promise that is at issue -- usually the one that the defendant made but refuses to keep. Then try to determine whether (and why) the court concludes that the promise is legally enforceable. The first part of this section involves the consideration requirement; the following parts catalog some of the exceptions to the consideration requirement.