Contractual obligations between man and wife
Marriage is a contract, but the courts will not enforcethe contract between husband and wife. For instance, if the woman was persuaded to marry the man because he said he was wealthy, she cannot suehim for misrepresentationif he lied about his supposed wealth.
The courts will not interfere with a workingmarriage. So, if a husband arranges to meet his wife at twelve o'clock but she does not keep the appointment,he cannot hold her liablefor the losses and expenseshe has suffered.This is all part of the wear and tear ofmarriage. The courts will interveneonly if the couple clearly intended a legal relationship to follow on from an agreement, such as when they are discussing a business matter.
CREDIT TEST ONE
Jury Adds $25 Million Damages
"Finding O. J. liable of the murders was one of the easiest decisions I have ever had to make"
Santa Monica, California - Jurors who decided O.J. Simpson was a killer and a liar tried to make sure he would never be a crass profiteer.
They decided Monday he should pay $25 million in punitive damages to the heirs of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, on top of the $8,5 million in compensatory damages meted out February 4, for Goldman's parents.
Even by the plaintiffs' own evidence, that's more than double what Simpson is worth. And Simpson says he doesn't have the money to pay.
The decision marked yet another milestone in the 2 1/2 year legal saga that transfixed the United States and still exposes its racial divisions - from the acquittal by a mostly black jury to the wrongful death verdict from a mostly white panel.
The verdicts - on liability, compensation and punishment - resonated with confidence.
At a post-verdict news conference, six jurors and two alternates spoke of decisions made carefully with logic and compassion during 17 hours of deliberations over five days. The criminal trial jury took just four hours in October 1995 to acquit Simpson of killing Ms. Simpson and her friend.
"Finding O.J.Simpson liable of the murders and acting with oppression and malice was one of the easiest decisions I have ever had to make", said 27-year-old juror Laura Fast-Khazaee.
Juror Deena Lynn Mullen, 40, dispensed with any notion that Simpson got nailed because the civil trial jury used the preponderance of evidence standard, rather than the beyond a reasonable doubt standard used at the criminal trial.
"What I needed to be able to walk out of that room was not just a reasonable doubt, but beyond a shadow of a doubt, and I was willing to stay there for a month if that's what it took to answer all of those questions for myself, she said.
Jurors said they took 12 hours to reach a verdict in the compensatory phase last week because they painstakingly went through the evidence. They didn't take their first vote until the very end - and found out then they were unanimous in their feeling that Simpson was a killer.
The mostly white jury, in contrast to the mostly black jury that acquitted Simpson, said race had nothing to do with its decision.
The jurors said the most compelling evidence was the blood and photos showing Simpson wearing the same type of Bruno Magli shoes that left bloody prints near the victims' bodies. They also said Simpson, who denied ever wearing the shoes, could not be believed.
Lurking behind the confident jury was a troubling issue. The lone remaining black panellist, an alternate who listened to the same evidence but did not deliberate, thought Simpson got a raw deal.
"For the most part I felt Simpson was pretty credible", said the woman, in her 40s. "The plaintiffs were more like bullies than professionals". The $33,5 million in total damages dwarfs the $15,7 million that plaintiffs estimated Simpson is worth, based on the predicted $3 million he stands to make every year for selling his name, likeness and trademark. The estimate is important because by law creditors can garnish up to 25 percent of future wages. The $25 million punitive award is do be split evenly between Goldman's parents and Ms. Simpson's children.
Before the plaintiffs can claim their money, the judge must decide whether the awards are reasonable, or inflated by irrational passions. He can pare them down if he chooses.
Simpson also could appeal, but that would not let him postpone payment. Bankruptcy is another possibility, but it would not allow Simpson to avoid his debts.
Simpson watched reports of the verdict not from the courtroom, but from the golf course, which has always been his sanctuary.
Exc.1. Answer the following questions:
1. What did the jurors decide finally?
2. What can you say about the two juries and their decisions? What standards did they use to render their verdicts.
3. How did the jurors characterize the verdict they returned? What evidence did they use?
4. What fine did they impose on O.J.?
Law of Contracts
English law textbooks often describe a contract as an agreement which is made between two or more parties and which is binding in law. In order to be binding in lawthe agreement must include an offerand an acceptanceof that offer. The parties must agree to contract on certain terms, that is, they must know what are they agreeing to (but they need not know that their agreement can be described in law as a contract).They must have intended to be legally bound:there would be no contract, if, for example, they were just joking when they made the agreement. And valuable considerationmust have been given by the person to whom a promise was made. In this case, consideration is a legal word to describe something a person has given, or done, or agreed not to do, when making the contract.
When a court is deciding if a contract has been made, it must consider all these elements. In common law countries, the judge will be guided by decisions made in previous cases. If the judge is dealing with a problem which has never arisen before he must make a decision based upon general legal principles,and this decision will become a precedent for other judges in similar cases in the future. The most important principle guiding ajudge is whether a reasonable observerof the agreement would decide that it was a contract. But sometimes decisions seem very technical because lawyers try to explain exactly why a decision has been made, even when that decision appears to be obvious common sense. Of course exact explanations are even more important when the decision does not appear to be common sense. By looking at some of the elements of a contract, we can see how important cases have helped to develop English law.
One principle of English contract law is that there must be offer and acceptance.An advertisement to sell something is not normally considered an offer. If I see an add in a newspaper offering to sell a car, I nnd I telephone the advertiser and agree to buy it, the seller is not I obliged-to sell it to me. This is because the law considers that the real offeris when I contact the seller asking to buy the car. The seller may then decide whether to accept or reject my offer. This is the reason a I «tore does not have to sell you the goods it displays for sale.
Most systems of law have similar requirements about offer and acceptance, legal intention, and consideration. They also consider the I capacity of contractors;that is, whether they were legally entitled to contract.
In English law there are some special rules if one of the contractors is a I company, rather than an individual, under the age of 18, or insane. Legal I systems have rules for interpreting contracts in which one or more I contractors made a mistake or was pressured or tricked into making an I agreement, and rules for dealing with illegal contracts. For example, under I English law a contractor cannot enforce an agreement againstanother party if the agreement was to commit a crime.