Contractual Law: A Look at John and Chen Essay -- contract law, case st

a) What arguments could Chen use to support his refusal to pay John more than the original agreed price? A valid contract that is legally enforceable should consist of an offer, an acceptance, an intention to be bound and a sufficient consideration. Accordingly, the first contract formed by Chen and John includes John’s agreement to build for Chen extension of the house in consideration of payment of the price of building materials as per the date of completion of performance of the contract and labor costs of $6000 at the performance of the contract. First and foremost Chen needs to understand that this was the original contract and both him and John were legally bounded by the contract. By changing the terms of agreement, John made a counter offer a fact that Chen could use in his justification for refusal of payment. This is evident as John proposed a new term in the contract by demanding a payment of $10,000 or not doing the job as agreed in the original contract. A counter offer changes the terms of the original contract and at this time Chen had the right he terminate the contract due to John’s counter offer. As a matter of fact, it is worth noting that a counter offer fails to exist if the offeree accepts the new terms of the contract as Chen did but Chen can use it to argue that John had no intention to be bound by the original contract (Koffman and Mcdonald, 2007). Duress occurs in a contract when one party is made to engage in a contract that he otherwise did not want to engage in due to blackmails, threats of bring actual harm, and threats of withdrawal from the contract at the time it is urgently needed. The two types of duress currently existing is physical duress and economic duress and Chen can use econ... ...n argue that failure of his completion of the contract in time was out of circumstances that he could not control. In addition, John can argue that the breach of the term of completion of the building at June was contributed by Chens’s reluctance of acceptance of the second offer. References Books Adams, A. (2010). Law for Business Students. London, U.K : Longman Koffman, L. & MacDonald, E., (2007) The Law of Contract (6th Edition) : Oxford University Press, McKenDrick, E. (2005). Contract Law Text,. Cases and Materials (2nd Edition): Oxford University Press, Cases Bank of Australia Limited v Amadio (1983) 151 CLR 447 Goldsbrough Mort & Co Ltd v Quinn (1910) 10 CLR 674, Integrated Computer Services Pty Ltd v Digital Equipment Corp (Aust) Pty Ltd (1988) 5 BPR 11,110). Smith v William Charlick [1924] 34 CLR 38 The Mihalis Angelos [1970] 3 WLR 601