Contracts Assigment - Semester 1 2016

8 Pages • Essays / Projects • Year: Pre-2021 • Previously uploaded under: LLB120 - Law of Contract A

Part A: 20 marks (Maximum length: 4 pages) Seeing an advertisement for the The Jangles’ Sydney concert to be held on March 29 gave Danny a great idea. As the concert coincided with his girlfriend Daisy’s birthday, he would organise a dream date as her birthday surprise - pick her up in a flash car, take her to a great concert, and perhaps stay a night in a cool hotel. She would love it. Online ticket sales for the concert opened on the Ticketfest website the next morning. Danny was ready, almost tingling with the thrill of the race for tickets and the anticipation of the big night. His hands hovered over his keyboard and pounced as the site went live. Tap, tap: 2 tickets; tap, tap: seats; tap, tap: price and credit card details. But just as he hit ‘confirm’ he saw, too late, that he had accidentally selected the wrong venue. The default setting had been The Jangles’ first gig of the tour in Perth, not the concert he wanted for the next night in Sydney. Up came the final page confirming he had purchased 2 tickets to the Perth concert on 28 March. He thumped the computer, clicked reverse arrows, but all to no avail. Even worse, when he re-entered the system, all the tickets to the Sydney concert were gone. He quickly shot off an email to Ticketfest explaining his silly error and his intention to only buy Sydney tickets, but their response was uncompromising, ‘You bought the tickets. Take your girlfriend to Perth. She’s worth it don’t you think?’ The next day, Danny met a friend for coffee and told him his sad tale. ‘I have an idea,’ said his friend, ‘I know someone in the industry who may be able to help you with tickets - Wally Weldrum. He knows everyone. Here are his contact details.’ As soon as he got home, Danny sent Wally an email. He explained his plans for a dream date with Daisy and his ticket mixup and continued: So I am just wondering if there is any possibility you could get me two tickets to The Jangles’ Sydney concert on 29 March? Contact me by phone, text or email – here are my details... Later that day, he received a text from Wally that read: I can’t guarantee anything, but I’ll keep my eyes peeled, my ears tuned and my feelers out and let you know. Danny immediately responded by email: That’s good enough for me. I know you can’t make promises, but I can. If you can get for me two tickets to The Jangles’ concert on 29 March, I will pay you $600. My future happiness is in your hands. Moved, in part, by the romantic notion of Danny’s dream date, Wally made countless phone calls to friends in the industry in an effort to secure great tickets for him. With the ticket situation in Wally’s hands, Danny moved on to organise the hotel. The Drum looked good. There had been a lot of noise about it since it opened. On 20 March, he sent them an email: Do you have a suite available on 29 March for 2 people? It’s a special birthday surprise for my girlfriend. The Drum replied by email two days later: We confirm availability on 29 March. We have set aside the penthouse suite for you at $500 for the night. Unless we hear from you to the contrary in the next two days, it’s yours. See you on the 29th. Perfect, thought Danny. Now for the car. He spotted a vintage MG sports car advertised on the web for $10,000. It gave the vendor’s email and mobile details. Danny rang the vendor, Vanessa, and half an hour later he was inspecting the car. It was sensational. But with only $5,000 in the bank, he would need help from his mother. He explained the situation to Vanessa who said: I’m willing to drop the price for you. I will accept $9,000 cash as full payment and I will hold the car for you at that price until 5pm today to give you a chance to get your money together. But, if you want it, you need to speak to me by 5pm at the latest. You have my number. It was 1.00pm. Danny scurried home. He was disappointed to find his mother was not as excited about his dream date as he was. He rang Vanessa and said: My mum’s being a bit difficult. Any chance you might consider taking $5,000 now and the balance in 4 x $1,000 monthly instalments? Vanessa told Danny she was sorry to hear he had problems with his finances, but that she was only interested in a single cash payment upfront. Danny replied, ‘I’ll get it somehow.’ The next call Vanessa received, at 2.15pm, was from a middle-aged man willing to pay $10,000 for the car, sight unseen. She snapped it up and within moments she had $10,000 in her bank account and, shortly afterwards, she waved goodbye to her car and the paunchy, silver fox behind the wheel. She removed her ad from the website and sent Danny an email telling him the car was now sold. Without access to email on his basic mobile, Danny remained oblivious to these goings on. He spent his afternoon trying to get the extra $4,000 he needed for the purchase. He borrowed $1,000 from his grandmother, $500 from an uncle and at 4.50pm secured a loan for $3,500 from Cash and Dash. The loan consultant remarked to Danny that it ‘must be MG sale day’ as he was the second person that day to take out a loan to buy an MG. Danny sent off a quick text to Vanessa at 4.55pm to let her know he now had the $9,000 cash and hot footed it over to her place to pick up the car. Vanessa was surprised to find Danny at her door at 5.05pm. She hadn’t seen his text message as she was in the pool. ‘Sorry Danny, you are too late. I sold the car after your earlier call. I sent you an email to let you know. You really must get a smartphone.’ He replied, ‘what I really want is your car.’ On 29 March, Danny woke expectantly. In fact, he had hardly slept. By midday, however, things were looking bleak. When he had rung Daisy to surprise her with what he had in store, she broke in immediately and broke it all off. They were through. She thought he had forgotten her birthday again, and that was the last straw. She said she didn’t want to talk about it and hung up. Shortly afterwards his phone rang. He hoped it was Daisy, but it was Wally. Before Wally could say anything, Danny interjected, ‘I was just about to ring you Wally. You don’t need to worry about those tickets anymore, I don’t need them. Daisy and I are through and The Jangles are the last band I’d want to see.’ ‘Too late,’ said Wally, ‘I have got you great tickets and I worked my butt off to get them. They are here for you to collect. I want my $600.’ No sooner had Wally hung up than Danny’s phone rang again. It was the manager of The Drum, telling Danny she had, as a treat, ‘just put champagne in the fridge in his room’. Danny thanked her for her trouble, but told her he no longer needed the room. ‘Too late’, said the manager, ‘we can’t get another guest at this late stage, you will have to pay the $500.’ Danny comes to you seeking legal advice as to any contractual rights and obligations he may have as a result of the above facts in his dealings with: a) Ticketfest; b) Wally; c) Vanessa; and d) The Drum. Provide that advice, limiting the issues you address to those covered in the prescribed readings in Weeks 1 to 4 of LLB 120 Law of Contract A. PART B: 10 marks (Maximum length: 2 pages) You may assume for this task that the Court has invited you, as Counsel for one of the parties in proceedings before it, to make submissions on the issue of whether or not the Postal Acceptance Rule should be retained. Your task is to draft the written submissions you would make to persuade the Court that the Postal Acceptance Rule should be retained. What is required is a properly supported, coherent and compelling argument to convince the Court why the Rule should be retained. You will need to support your argument by reference to relevant primary and secondary materials and to the policy considerations at play.

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