Law Paper

When in doubt, fight it out

I know a Final paper should start out by saying what the final is about and give the thesis, but I want to start with my thoughts, something different I thought you might like after reading about two thousand of these. When given a case like Smith vs. Smith, ones head can't help but to swell. There's this thirty pager on information we've "learned" through the semester, and I do say "learned", not in a bad way but in a truthful matter, you know, a thirty pager would be easy for the people in the class who truthfully did read every chapter every day and purely understood it. For me, I've always had this love for law, for some reason would keep Judge Joe hatchet or Judge Judy on the T.V, just because some people are just so crazy, and I'm sure you could agree; but law is very intimidating to me and I'm very much of a pushover when it comes down to it, so actually defending a case like this is a very difficult challenge, but in another way, it's something I'm very proud of, and I know this could just be one of many cases in real life that you deal with every day professor Dunn, but to me, when I finish this paper, it will be the proudest thing, that I've not only done all semester, but all year.

William Smith vs. James Smith

A contract, many and most things that deal with contracts will be touched upon in this case, from written to oral, to breaching and the damage. The following case presented in a civil court and is portraying both the petitioner and defendants sides. James Smith Promised his son William Smith when he graduated that if he moved to the Island of Nantucket, Massachusetts to be the V.P of corporate finance, he will pay him $150,000 annually and after two years of working James will transfer to him forty percent (40%) of the common stock in the company. Considering that William can not collect 40% of the stock unless he's already worked as VP for two years makes that part of the contract unilateral, and the section of the contract that states that James will pay William $150,000 annually, is a Bilateral contract; a promise for a promise, he promised to pay him the money if William promised to work as VP of corporate finance. William excepted and later James denied his statement and is stated that he was "only joking," the following will be the case that would be represented to the Jury and the verdict.

In the matters of William Smith vs. James Smith, the case will be research and concluded. To follow the laws of a contract, there are four requirements that need to be met before a contract could ever be valid; these requirements are as listed: Agreement, Consideration, Contractual capacity and Legality. For an agreement, it must have two parts, and offer and an acceptance. James Smith told his son William the following:

* To move to the island and be VP of corporate finance

* Will get paid one hundred and fifty dollars annually ($150,000)

* And, after two (2) years of service, James Smith will transfer 40 percent of the common stock in the company to William

That, straight forward, is an offer. From that statement, William immediately emailed his father an acceptance for these terms, which is the second part that needs to be obtained for an agreement.

The second requirement for a contract is consideration, which is also broken down into two parts. For part 1, "something of legally sufficient value must be given in exchange for the promise; and 2 usually; there must be a bargained-for exchange (243.)" The legally sufficient value and the bargained-for exchange are as followed:

* William Smith receives $150,000 annually, and then 40 percent of the stock after working two years if he works as V.P for the family owned Inn.

* James will get William as V.P of corporate finance. Only because he turned down all of the offers he received to take over the family business, which is the bargained for exchange, James gets William, if he turns down the offers.

The third part of the contract is capacity. The law says that both parties that are taking part in the contract must have contractual capacity, which means that either parties or even one person in the parties cannot be mentally incompetent, if so, a legal binding contract cannot take place. Which in the case of Smith vs. Smith, both parties were mentally competent and the contract, in this case, is valid. Lastly, the fourth requirement that makes a contract, Legality. Legality is simply stated that is must be legal and in if in any means there is something stated in the contract that is prohibited by the state of federal statutory law, it will then be seen as an illegal contract, and will be voided, examining Smith vs. Smith case, everything is legal. In conclusion in deciding whether the case meets the contracts requirements, it is seen that both parties met all of them; and a legal informal contract did in fact take place.

Specifically enough it was an orally binding contract, when the contract gets brought to trial, one of James Smith defenses may possibly be that there was no written contract, when in this case, the contract does not have to be in writing, so that fact would not even matter and other evidence will be brought up in the trial that will prove that James does not have much of defense against the contract that was formed, these facts will be brought up later. They agreed upon by orally interacting and there was an e-mail that was the validity of the contract, there were two times an agreement with out any ratification. Since there was a lack of formal writing, in this case, the court will enforce this oral contract to support William Smiths case under the theory of Detrimental Reliance and Promissory Estoppels. Bringing in an ethical issue, William was offered several high paying jobs after his graduation of NYU including an offer from a very impressive Wall Street investment banking firm. One in particular offered William $750,000 annually with a bonus of 20% of his gross revenues were guaranteed. In Trial, a promissory estoppel supporting Williams's case will be brought up and be the biggest supporting evidence for his side. Since the Smith family owned and operated the Nantucket Inn, on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, William went to school in hope to one day expand this family business. When William Smith was offered the deal from his father James, he immediately accepted turning down all of the other offers of employment from many prestigious companies, one that was four times more then what his father offered, but to James,