LB-501: Moot Court, Mock Trial and Internship

LL.B. V Term, Faculty of Law

University of Delhi

CASE COMMENT

Name of the Centre- Campus Law Centre

Section- I

Student’s Name- Mohd Ubaidulla

Class Roll No.- 191553

Exam Roll No.- 19309806495

Name of the case

Balfour vs Balfour 2 KB 571 (Court of Appeal 1919)

Facts of the Case:

The present case is an appeal filed by the husband, Mr. Balfour against the ruling of Justice
Sargent, Additional Judge of King’s Bench Division, who had held that a valid contract had
arisen between him and her wife as per the facts of the cases. The appeal had been filed in the
Civil Division of Court of Appeal. The parties in the present case were Mr. Balfour and his
wife Mrs. Balfour. On 8th August, 1916, he entered into an agreement with his wife vowing to
pay £24 for that month and £30 for all subsequent months till she returns to Ceylon. There was
admission by wife that such agreement was made when there were no prior differences among
them. The payment of the above mentioned amount continued for some months but with time
their relations deteriorated and ultimately he stopped payment of that amount to the wife,
following which she brought a suit for enforcement of the verbal agreement made between
them and the lower court ruled in her favour. The case in question is an appeal filed by the
husband in Court of Appeal against this decision of the lower court.

Questions before the court

1. Whether the agreement qualified as a valid contract between them?

2. Did Mr. Balfour intend to create legal relations by the agreement?

4. Whether domestic and social agreements can be enforced and comes within the ambit of
Contract law?

Judgement

The three judge bench, in their judgement, observed that the agreement which was created
between the husband and wife was an ordinary domestic agreement between the spouses and
as no prior disputes were present between them at the time of agreement, it could be inferred
that there was no intention of creating legal relations and giving rise to legal consequences.
Thus the agreement between them lacked any legal enforcement and in the unanimous decision,
the bench overturned the decision of the lower court and absolved Mr. Balfour to act as per
terms of the agreement.

Conclusion of the case

Intention to create Legal Relations is one of the most important essentials of Indian Contract
act, 1872 in order for a contract to be valid. Section 10 of Indian Contract act makes it essential
that there need to be an intention to create legal relations and thus agreement of domestic or
social nature does not qualify to be valid contract.

In this case, the main question that arise is that whether an ordinary agreement between the
spouses when everything is fine between them, gives rise to a valid contract or doesn’t amount
to any contract because of being domestic or social in nature and thus having no intention of
creating legal relations.

By studying and going through this case , we understand that a mere social agreement made
within a family can not be enforced in court of law, these agreements do not hold any legally
binding authority. Second thing is there must be an intention to create a legal relation at the
part of the parties. Owing to all this, Mr. Balfour could not be sued by Mrs. Balfour in court of
law. This case has often been seen in conjunction with Merritt vs. Merritt 1970] 2 All ER
760; [1970] 1 WLR 121. In this case, though the couple was married but they already had an
estranged relationship, when the agreement was made, so in this scenario, any sort of agreement
between them was to be considered that of legal in nature. This case give the attention towards
the importance of ‘intention to create legal relations’ in the Contract Law.