History Of Contract Law
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History Of Contract Law
The history of contract law dates back to Ancient civilizations. Ancient law English contract law's history was heavily influenced by Ancient Greek and Roman thought. In ''The Laws'', Plato devoted little attention to forms of agreement, but recognized the same basic categories for cancelling agreements as exist today. Roman law identified discrete categories of contractual transaction, each with its own requirements, which needed to be fulfilled in order for promises to be enforced. The general kind, ''stipulatio'', required various words to be used to generate an obligation, or in a '' contractus litteris'' it could be written down. There were four categories of consensual agreement, and four kinds of contract creating property rights, such as a pledge ('' pignus'') or a secured loan ('' mutuum''). More than appeared from the general rules in Ancient Greece, Roman law represented an early division between specific kinds of contract, depending on the transaction's nature. Mediev ...
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Ex Turpi Causa Non Oritur Actio
' (Latin "from a dishonorable cause an action does not arise") is a legal doctrine which states that a plaintiff will be unable to pursue legal relief and damages if it arises in connection with their own tortious act. Particularly relevant in the law of contract, tort and trusts, ' is also known as the illegality defence, since a defendant may plead that even though, for instance, he broke a contract, conducted himself negligently or broke an equitable duty, nevertheless a claimant by reason of his own illegality cannot sue. The UK Supreme Court provided a thorough reconsideration of the doctrine in 2016 in ''Patel v Mirza''. 016UKSC 42 Illegality in English Law Development In the early case of ''Holman v Johnson'' Lord Mansfield CJ set out the rationale for the illegality doctrine. Tort In the law of tort, the principle would prevent a criminal from bringing a claim against (for example) a fellow criminal. In '' National Coal Board v England'', Lord Asquith said, In ' ...
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Treatise On The Laws And Customs Of The English Kingdom
The (''Treatise on the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom of England''), often called ''Glanvill treatise'', is the earliest treatise on English law. Attributed to Ranulf de Glanvill (died 1190) and dated 1187–1189, it was revolutionary in its systematic codification that defined legal process and introduced writs, innovations that have survived to the present day. It is considered a book of authority in English common law. Written for Henry II () as the culmination of his long struggle to return the kingdom to peace and prosperity following years of anarchy, the ''Tractatus'' is fairly described as the means to implement Henry's objectives. It would be supplanted as a primary source of English law by the ''De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae'' (''On the Laws and Customs of England'') of Henry de Bracton (), which itself owes much of its heritage to the ''Tractatus''. There has been debate over the actual author of all or parts of the ''Tractatus''. The legal opinions of Gla ...
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The Humber Ferryman’s Case
''Bukton v Tounesende'' or ''The Humber Ferryman's case'' (1348) B&M 358J Baker and Milsom, ''Sources of English Legal History'' (1986) 358 is an English contract law case. Facts Nicholas Tounesende of Helle undertook to ferry John Bukton's horse across the Humber river. Tounesende overloaded the boat with horses and Bukton’s horse fell overboard. Bukton sued in tort, for trespass. There was no sealed document, and under previous law it had been required to sue for breach of a covenant. So Tounesende argued that the action should be brought in covenant. The King's Bench had travelled away from Westminster and had arrived in York. Judgment The King's Bench held the action could rightly be brought in tort. The claim was against the killing of the horse, and not merely the failure to transport it. Accordingly no documentary proof of a covenant was needed. See also *English contract law English contract law is the body of law that regulates legally binding agreements in Engl ...
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Seal (contract Law)
In the law, a seal affixed to a contract or other legal instrument has had special legal significance at various times in the jurisdictions that recognise it. In the courts of common law jurisdictions, a contract which was sealed ("made under seal") was treated differently from other written contracts (which were "made under hand"), although this practice gradually fell out of favour in most of these jurisdictions in the 19th and early 20th century. The legal term ''seal'' arises from the wax seal used throughout history for authentication (among other purposes). Originally, only a wax seal was accepted as a seal by the courts, but by the 19th century many jurisdictions had relaxed the definition to include an impression in the paper on which the instrument was printed, an embossed paper wafer affixed to an instrument, a ''scroll'' made with a pen, or the printed words "Seal" or "L.S." (standing for the Latin term ''locus sigilli'' meaning "place of the seal"). Notwithstand ...
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Covenant (law)
A covenant, in its most general sense and historical sense, is a solemn promise to engage in or refrain from a specified action. Under historical English common law, a covenant was distinguished from an ordinary contract by the presence of a seal. Because the presence of a seal indicated an unusual solemnity in the promises made in a covenant, the common law would enforce a covenant even in the absence of consideration. In United States contract law, an implied ''covenant'' of good faith is presumed. A covenant is an agreement like a contract. The covenantor makes a promise to a covenantee to perform an action ''(affirmative covenant'' in the United States or ''positive covenant'' in England and Wales) or to refrain from an action (negative covenant). In real property law, the term ''real covenants'' means that conditions are tied to the ownership or use of land. A "covenant running with the land", meeting tests of wording and circumstances laid down in precedent, imposes duti ...
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Court Of King's Bench (England)
The Court of King's Bench, formally known as The Court of the King Before the King Himself, was a court of common law in the English legal system. Created in the late 12th to early 13th century from the '' curia regis'', the King's Bench initially followed the monarch on his travels. The King's Bench finally joined the Court of Common Pleas and Exchequer of Pleas in Westminster Hall in 1318, making its last travels in 1421. The King's Bench was merged into the High Court of Justice by the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873, after which point the King's Bench was a division within the High Court. The King's Bench was staffed by one Chief Justice (now the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales) and usually three Puisne Justices. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the King's Bench's jurisdiction and caseload was significantly challenged by the rise of the Court of Chancery and equitable doctrines as one of the two principal common law courts along with the Common Pleas. To recov ...
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Court Of Chancery
The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid a slow pace of change and possible harshness (or "inequity") of the Common law#History, common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over all matters of equity, including English trusts law, trusts, English property law, land law, the estates of Mental illness, lunatics and the guardianship of infants. Its initial role was somewhat different: as an extension of the lord chancellor's role as Keeper of the King's Conscience, the court was an administrative body primarily concerned with conscientious law. Thus the Court of Chancery had a far greater remit than the common law courts, whose decisions it had the jurisdiction to overrule for much of its existence, and was far more flexible. Until the 19th century, the Court of Chancery could apply a far wider range of remedies than common law courts, such as specific performance and injunctions, and had some power to grant damage ...
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Rattlesdene V Grunestone
{{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022 Rattlesdene v Grunestone (YB 10 Edw II (54 SS) 140) is a 1317 case in English law. Facts The plaintiff claimed that the defendant had sold him a bottle of wine but, before delivery, drew off much of the wine and replaced it with salt water. Commentary The academics Mark Lunney and Ken Oliphant argue that in reality the case was likely the result of a shipping accident with the facts fabricated to allow the court to circumvent the ''vi et armis'' requirements which required that loss be suffered 'with force and arms' if a claim was to be brought.Lunney, M. and Olipant, K. (2013), ''Tort Law: Texts and Materials'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 5 See also *Trespass on the case The writs of trespass and trespass on the case are the two catchall torts from English common law, the former involving trespass against the person, the latter involving trespass against anything else which may be actionable. The writ is also known ... References Engl ...
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Tun (unit)
The tun ( ang, tunne, la, tunellus, ) is an English unit of ''liquid volume'' (not weight), used for measuring wine, oil or honey. Typically a large vat or vessel, most often holding 252 wine gallons, but occasionally other sizes (e.g. 256, 240 and 208 gallons) were also used. The modern tun is about 954 litres. The word ''tun'' is etymologically related to the word ''ton'' for the unit of mass, the mass of a tun of wine being approximately one long ton, which is . History Originally, the tun was defined as 256 wine gallons; this is the basis for the name of the quarter of 64  corn gallons. At some time before the 15th century, it was reduced to 252 gallons, so as to be evenly divisible by other small integers, including seven.252 =  In one Early Modern English example from 1507, a tun is defined as 240 gallons. With the adoption of the Queen Anne wine gallon of 231 cubic inches in 1706 the tun approximated the volume of a cylinder with both dia ...
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Vi Et Armis
Trespass ''vi et armis'' was a kind of lawsuit at common law called a tort. The form of action alleged a trespass upon person or property ''vi et armis'', Latin for "by force and arms." The plaintiff would allege in a pleading that the act committing the offense was "immediately injurious to another's property, and therefore necessarily accompanied by some degree of force; and by special action ''on the case'', where the act is in itself indifferent and the injury only consequential, and therefore arising without any breach of the peace." Thus it was "immaterial whether the injury was committed willfully or not." In ''Taylor v. Rainbow'', the defendant negligently discharged a firearm in a public place and caused the loss of the plaintiff's leg. The defendant was held to be liable for medical bills as well as lost earnings as a result of the disability. Thus, proof that the act or omission was unintended was no defense to an action of trespass ''vi et armis'' and the liable par ...
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Tort
A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable by the state. While criminal law aims to punish individuals who commit crimes, tort law aims to compensate individuals who suffer harm as a result of the actions of others. Some wrongful acts, such as assault and battery, can result in both a civil lawsuit and a criminal prosecution in countries where the civil and criminal legal systems are separate. Tort law may also be contrasted with contract law, which provides civil remedies after breach of a duty that arises from a contract. Obligations in both tort and criminal law are more fundamental and are imposed regardless of whether the parties have a contract. While tort law in civil law jurisdictions largely derives from Roman law, common law jurisdictions derive their tort law from cus ...
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Magna Carta 1215
(Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called (also ''Magna Charta''; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Stephen Langton, to make peace between the unpopular king and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons. Neither side stood behind their commitments, and the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III, leading to the First Barons' War. After John's death, the regency government of his young son, Henry III, reissued the document in 1216, stripped of some of its more radical content, in an unsuccessful bid to build political support for their cause. At the end of the war in 1217, it formed part of the pea ...
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