Contract law as practiced in Europe Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Contract law as practiced in Europe - Case Study Example The aim of this letter is to examine whether your wife has a chance of getting a favourable settlement in court if she decides to take legal action against you after all. The issue here is whether Penny's case will succeed if brought to court. In other words, will the case find you, Max Power, liable of paying Penny the money that you owe her for support for the past six months This is given the fact that the two of you are still legally married under the Irish Family Law Act 1995 and you having promised to support your wife who is unable to work because of the work place accident that she had five years ago. These are the questions I, as your legal adviser, will be trying to answer in this letter. As to whether Penny's case will succeed if it comes before any Irish family court, I strongly believe that your wife stands a higher chance of convincing the judge to force you to clear the outstanding balance and to continue paying her the monthly allowances. This is if she accuses you on other grounds apart from the current grounds of ostensibly breaking a contract. However, since she has opted to sue you for breaking a contract, I believe that her case does not stand a chance in a court of law in England. This is because there is no legal document that exists showing that the two of you entered in any form of contract. ... 3 In June 2008, you left for Dubai and left your wife alone at home 4 You verbally agreed to pay Penny support allowances of $1500 verbally and you did so for six months 5 In January 2009, you met Stacey Floodgates and soon took her in as your partner 6 Since January 2009, you defaulted on paying Penny her monthly allowances 7 Five years ago, Penny had an accident which left her unable to work, and so she had been relying on her husband's support payments for upkeep 8 The reason why Penny is suing you is because she believes that the contract between the two of you, though verbal, was binding Rule Statement and Rule Synthesis For a contract to be binding under the European code of conduct, there are some requirements that it has to meet. These are generally referred to as "the three c's" (Gordley, 2008). The first is the cause, whereby a reason should have emerged that required for the drafting of the contract (Gordley, 2008). The second is consideration. This is whereby the two parties must have identified the form of contract that is best to enter into to given their circumstances. The third and most important aspect of a contract in our case here is the consent (Gordley, 2008). This is an indication that the parties went through the contract and agreed to abide by the terms provided for there. This consent is indicated in form of a signature that is appended by both parties in the contract. Without a signature, leave alone without the written document, the contract is null and void, and nobody can be accused of breaching it. The only exception whereby an actual signature is not needed on the document is when the contract is done online (Orlando, 2009). But even these form of contracts, under the Irish law that governs electronic contracts,