Introduction to Contract Law

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• The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.
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The felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and

political theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed or
unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their
fellow-men, have had a good deal more to do than the
syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be
governed. The law embodies the story of a nation’s
development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt
with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a
book of mathematics. In order to know what it is, we must
know what it has been, and what it tends to become.
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 Theories of Social Contract

• State of Nature

• Problems

• Voluntary Agreement of all individuals to form the State

• To what extent are the rights surrendered by the individual?

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• The law accepted that different legal

relationships and transactions had their own

specific rules, flowing from the nature and

purpose of the transaction rather than from

terms agreed upon by the parties involved

 Social contract theorists and the definition of contract

• A contract is a kind of mutual agreement, a voluntary act of

the will
• A person cannot be bound by a contract unless he or she has
chosen to be bound
• Contractual relationships based on the free will of the parties
rather than on naturally existing rights and duties
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• Two people each giving up different rights, one to the

other, are making a contract. The words they use, or the

form, doesn't matter, so long as they have the intention

to make the agreement. By definition, contracting is a

voluntary act. A sign of a contract "is whatsoever

sufficiently argues the will of the contractor”

 Basis of Classical Contract Law

• Will

• The law of contract gives expression to

protects the will of the parties, for will is

something inherently worthy of respect

 It’s not will

• Promise Theory

• Consent Theory

• Relational Contract theory

• Economic Analysis based Approach

• Critical Legal Studies based Approach

• Feminist Approach
Why should contracts be enforced- The Basis

Will
Efficien
Reliance
cy

Bargain Fairness
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• The movement of progressive

societies has hitherto been a

movement from Status to Contract