Posted: August 17th, 2022

Dozier and his wife, daughter, and grandson

Law Assignment
1. Dozier and his wife, daughter, and grandson lived in the house Dozier owned. At the request of the daughter and grandson, Paschall made some improvements to the house. Dozier did not authorize these, but he knew that the improvements were being made and did not object to them. Paschall sued Dozier for the reasonable value of the improvements, but Dozier argued that he had not made any contract for such improvements. Was he obligated to pay for such improvements?

2. Margrethe and Charles Pyatte, a married couple, agreed that she would work so that he could go to law school and that when he finished, she would go back to school for her master’s degree. After Charles was admitted to the bar and before Margrethe went back to school, the two were divorced. She sued Charles, claiming that she was entitled to quasi-contractual recovery of the money that she had paid for Charles’s support and law school tuition. He denied liability. Was she entitled to recover for the money she spent for Charles’s maintenance and law school tuition? (Pyeatte v. Pyeatte, 661 P.2d 196 (Ariz. App.))

3. Nelson wanted to sell his home. Baker sent him a written offer to purchase the home. Nelson made some changes to Baker’s offer and wrote him that he, Nelson, was accepting the offer as amended. Baker notified Nelson that he was dropping out of the transaction. Nelson Sued Baker for breach of contract. Decide. What social forces and ethical values are involved? (Nelson v. Baker, 776 S.W.2d 52 (Mo. App.))

Law Assignment
Parties to a contract become obligated to them if the said contracts have fulfilled all the elements of a contract. The elements of a contract include, offer, acceptance, the legality of the contract, the legal capacity of the parties to a contract, contractual capabilities, and presence of an oral or written agreement (Peel and Treitel, 2007). In this respect, failure to meet one of the elements of a contract renders it null and void and thus cannot be legally enforced.
Dozier v. Nelson
To begin with, Dozier is not obligated to pay Paschall for the improvement charges in his house. In this respect, Paschall had not entered into any agreement with Dozier to make improvements to his house. In fact, Dozier had disagreed to the arrangement to make an improvement to the house between Paschall, and Dozier`s daughter and grandson. Therefore, the contract lacks acceptance from Dozier thus he is not obligated to make payments and the contract cannot be enforced.
Pyeatte v. Margrethe, 661 P.2d 196
Consequently, Margrethe is entitled to quasi-contractual recovery from Charles Pyeatte for the breach of the contract. In this case, all the main elements of the contract were fulfilled and thus the contract could be legally enforced. The couple had orally made an agreement, the contract was legal, they had the contractual capacity, and there was acceptance and offer through the oral agreement made. Therefore, despite the couple divorcing and Margrethe had done her role in the contract then Charles was obligated to honor his obligation in the contract.
Nelson v. Baker, 776 S.W.2d 52
Lastly, in the breach of contract between Baker and Nelson, there are ethical values and social forces that arise. In this case, both Nelson and Baker had entered in an initial contract but upon making amendments on the contract Baker opted out of the contract. In this case, the ethical value of honesty and trusts arose as they were breached. There was dishonesty on the part of Nelson as he disregarded the original contract and offered another contract with different terms despite baker agreeing to the original contract. On the other hand, social forces arose due to the inability of Nelson to honor the first contract despite the association that the two had through the agreement. In this case, the contract or agreement could have pressurized Nelson to honor the previous agreement that was not amended.

Reference
Peel, E., & Treitel, G. H. (2007). The law of contract (pp. 1-2). London: Sweet & Maxwell.

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Tags: and grandson, daughter, Dozier and his wife