Mary, a keen pottery collector, saw a notice for an auction at James Pottery Lim
ID: 425450 • Letter: M
Question
Mary, a keen pottery collector, saw a notice for an auction at James Pottery Limited on September 30th 2017 in the Daily News. She traveled 300 kilometers, to attend the auction in order to bid for a particularly rare item of Mozart pottery, specifically mentioned in the list of items to be auctioned. However, when she got to the auction site, she found a notice outside stating that the auction had been cancelled. Mary thereafter proceeded to a nearby antique shop and saw an item of the same type of pottery she had come to bid for, which the price ticket stated as $5000. Mary indicated to the shop owner, Anthony, that she was only willing to pay $4,000 for it. However, Anthony said he would sell it for $4,500. Mary then indicated to him that she desires some time to think about it over lunch; Anthony subsequently, agreed not to sell the identified pottery before Mary returned. However, when Mary returned to purchase the pottery, she found that Anthony had already sold it to someone else, who had paid $4,500 for it.
In the context of contract law, advise Mary whether she can take action against Anthony, for not selling the pottery to her.
word limit 300 words
kindly provide references
kindly provide similar court cases
Explanation / Answer
If one party makes a promise which reasons the other party to completely rely on that statement in such a way that he actually suffers financially then court can enforce such statement or promise as completed contract. However detrimental reliance of the promisee on the promise must be reasonable and foreseeable by the promisor at the time of his statement.
In Bonfire LLC v. Michael R. Zacharia court case plaintiff had entered into a lease agreement to rent a property with defendant Zacharia. However plaintiff in its petition claimed that during negotiations defendant had verbally agreed to provide plaintiff with a right of first refusal to purchase the property if defendant decided to sell it.
Plaintiff further alleged that it relied upon Zacharia’s oral assertion and thus didn’t insisted on a written right of first refusal clause in the lease agreement. However defendant decides to sell the property to a third party thus plaintiff filed a lawful suit alleging that defendant breached the contract by selling the property to a third party without honoring the verbal agreement that offered plaintiff a right of first refusal.
However US District Court of Columbia found that plaintiff had failed to satisfactorily provide facts establishing that it had a valid contract to purchase the property in the event of a sale. It further elucidated that a right of first refusal indeed must be in writing in order to be enforceable and plaintiff didn’t produce any such evidence.
Court also found that the breach of contract claim failed because of the integration clause where both the parties had agreed not to be bound by any terms, conditions, oral statements, warranties or representations not herein contained. Thus it facilitated the court to effectively establish that the contract in fact was fully integrated.
Thus court stated that plaintiff indeed had failed to state a valid claim under a breach of contract theory. Furthermore court held that plaintiff had the capacity and every opportunity to read the written contract before actually executing it or neither his signature was forged in the contract thus cannot later claim fraud in the inducement.