"known for malapropisms, paradoxes, and other speech errors called 'Goldwynisms' (""A humorous statement or phrase resulting from the use of incongruous or contradictory words, situations, idioms, etc."") being frequently quoted. For example, he was reported to have said, ""I don't think anybody should write his autobiography until after he's dead."" and ""Include me out."" Some famous Goldwyn quotations are misattributions. For example, the statement attributed to Goldwyn that ""a verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on"" is actually a well-documented misreporting of an actual quote praising the trustworthiness of a colleague: ""His verbal contract is worth more than"
"of contract, a contract is not presumed valid unless all parties voluntarily agree to it, either tacitly or explicitly, without coercion. Lysander Spooner, a 19th-century lawyer and staunch supporter of a right of contract between individuals, argued in his essay ""No Treason"" that a supposed social contract cannot be used to justify governmental actions such as taxation because government will initiate force against anyone who does not wish to enter into such a contract. As a result, he maintains that such an agreement is not voluntary and therefore cannot be considered a legitimate contract at all. Modern Anglo-American law, like"
"maximum clarity is desired. Samuel Goldwyn said, ""An oral contract is as good as the paper it's written on,"" but this is often not the case. The vast majority of transactions among individuals and between people and merchant companies are, in fact, the execution of oral contracts. Oral contracts, when made correctly before witnesses, can be enforced. For example, in 1984, after Getty Oil was sold to Pennzoil in a handshake deal, which is legally binding under New York law, Texaco made a higher offer, and the company was sold to Texaco. (Even though the case was tried in Texas,"
"New York law applied.) Pennzoil filed a lawsuit alleging tortious interference with the oral contract, which the court upheld and awarded $11.1 billion in damages, later reduced to $9.1 billion (but increased again by interest and penalties). Oral contract An oral contract is a contract, the terms of which have been agreed by spoken communication. This is in contrast to a written contract, where the contract is a written document. There may be written, or other physical evidence, of an oral contract – for example where the parties write down what they have agreed – but the contract itself is"
"Oral contract An oral contract is a contract, the terms of which have been agreed by spoken communication. This is in contrast to a written contract, where the contract is a written document. There may be written, or other physical evidence, of an oral contract – for example where the parties write down what they have agreed – but the contract itself is not a written one. In general, oral contracts are just as valid as written ones, but some jurisdictions either require a contract to be in writing in certain circumstances (for example where real property is being conveyed),"
"Frauds, but written contracts are still required for various circumstances such as land (through the Law of Property Act 1925). An oral contract may also be called a parol contract or a verbal contract, with ""verbal"" meaning ""spoken"" rather than ""in words"", an established usage in British English with regards to contracts and agreements, and common although somewhat deprecated as ""loose"" in American English. If a contract is in a written form, and somebody signs it, then the signer is typically bound by its terms regardless of whether they have actually read it provided the document is contractual in nature."
"or that a contract be evidenced in writing (although the contract itself may be oral). An example of the latter is the requirement that a contract of guarantee be evidenced in writing, which is found in the Statute of Frauds. Similarly, the limitation period prescribed for an action may be shorter for an oral contract than it is for a written one. The term ""verbal contract"" is sometimes used as a synonym for oral contract. However, since the term ""verbal"" could also mean just ""using words"" in addition to ""using spoken words"", the term ""oral contract"" should be preferred when"
"contract was entered into may have been intended to operate as terms, not all such statements will in fact operate as terms. Whether or not a statement made during negotiations is an enforceable term depends on whether or not the contract is one that is fully in writing, or one that contains an oral agreement. If a contract is fully in writing, then no statements made outside of the contractual document will be enforceable. This is known as the Parol evidence rule. This is sometimes made even more explicit by the inclusion of an entire agreement clause, which clarifies that"
"the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better."" The statement has frequently been attributed to 19th-century art critic and social thinker John Ruskin, although there is little evidence to support Ruskin's authorship. In the ""Yale Book of Quotations"", editor Fred R. Shapiro states that this statement was ""Attributed in ""Chicago Daily Tribune"", 29 Jan. 1928. This quotation, repeated in many commercial advertisements, has not been found anywhere in Ruskin's works. An earlier unattributed occurrence appeared in the ""Washington Post"", 1"
"in the written contract clause 7.6, which said that the written agreement was the entire agreement and no other representations could become part of it. HHJ Moloney QC held MWB had agreed to the variation, there was adequate consideration, but the written agreement precluded an oral agreement. Kitchin LJ held that the anti-oral variation clause did not preclude any variation, a powerful consideration being party autonomy. A subsequent variation meant the written clause was ineffective. Moreover, if one party derives a benefit from a promise to pay more money, that will be consideration (""Williams v Roffey Bros)"". The payment of"
"The Rise and Fall of Freedom of Contract The Rise and Fall of Freedom of Contract (1979) is a legal-historical text on the changes in the concept of freedom of contract by English Professor Patrick Atiyah. It was published by the Oxford University Press, and a paperback edition was released in 1985. The central theme is that the notion of a contract based on consent (or a ""meeting of minds"") was almost entirely absent before 1800 in the law. Instead it was based on reliance or the receipt of a benefit. You could revoke a promise, and the concept of"
"created when the most powerful man in the world can rewrite contracts and choose winners and losers in private negotiations as he sees fit. Since this is an unquantifiable uncertainty, and not a quantifiable risk, its effect on business and investor confidence will be large and unpredictable. As in the 1930s, a time when government also cavalierly rewrote private contracts, the prudent approach for business will be to invest minimally and wait for another administration. Governor of Indiana Mitch Daniels wrote an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal just before the one year anniversary of the Court's reversal of the"
"J. L. Austin John Langshaw Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February 1960) was a British philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, perhaps best known for developing the theory of speech acts. Austin pointed out that we use language to ""do"" things as well as to ""assert"" things, and that the utterance of a statement like ""I promise to do so-and-so"" is best understood as ""doing"" something — ""making a promise"" — rather than making an assertion about anything. Hence the name of one of his best-known works ""How to Do Things with Words"". Austin, in"
"contract can be an explicitly written document or a tacit agreement (some people call the former an ""explicit contract""). The contract is self-enforcing, meaning that neither of the two parties would be willing to breach the implicit contract in absence of any external enforcement since both parties would be worse off otherwise. The interpersonal negotiation and agreement in implicit contracts contrasts with the impersonal and nonnegotiable decision making in a decentralized competitive markets. As Arthur Melvin Okun puts it: a contract market is like an ""invisible handshake"" rather than the invisible hand. In traditional economic theory, a worker takes their"
"measures coincide. When a contract is written down, there is a basic presumption that the written document will conterms of an agreement, and when commercial parties sign documents every term referred to in the document binds them, unless the term is found to be unfair, the signed document is merely an administrative paper, or under the very limited defence of ""non est factum"". The rules differ in principle for employment contracts, and consumer contracts, or wherever a statutory right is engaged, and so the signature rule matters most in commercial dealings, where businesses place a high value on certainty. If"
"Environmental contract An environmental contract is a way of expressing the rights and responsibilities of citizens, businesses and the state when it comes to the environment. It is not known who invented the term. The British politician David Miliband used it when he was appointed Secretary of State for the Environment in May 2006, both in his blog, and in an article on the BBC News website. He initiated the launch of a wiki, to form an environmental contract. However, the site was edited heavily by Government officials, rendering pointless the exercise to interact with the public. The term can"
"resolve disputes under private commercial law. Negatively understood, freedom of contract is freedom from government interference and from imposed value judgments of fairness. The notion of ""freedom of contract"" was given one of its most famous legal expressions in 1875 by Sir George Jessel MR: The doctrine of freedom of contract received one of its strongest expressions in the US Supreme Court case of Lochner v New York which struck down legal restrictions on the working hours of bakers. Critics of the classical view of freedom of contract argue that this freedom is illusory when the bargaining power of the"
"but written contracts have typically been preferred in common law legal systems; in 1677 England passed the Statute of Frauds which influenced similar statute of frauds laws in the United States and other countries such as Australia. In general, the Uniform Commercial Code as adopted in the United States requires a written contract for tangible product sales in excess of $500, and real estate contracts are required to be written. If the contract is not required by law to be written, an oral contract is valid and therefore legally binding. The United Kingdom has since replaced the original Statute of"
"one's body is unalienable, voluntary slavery contracts are not binding under the TTToC. Promises that are not made with the intention of being legally binding are also non-enforceable under the TTToC. Title-transfer theory of contract The title-transfer theory of contract (TTToC) is a legal interpretation of contracts developed by economist Murray Rothbard and jurist Williamson Evers. The theory interprets all contractual obligations in terms of property rights, viewing a contract as a bundle of title transfers. The TTToC stands in oppositions to most mainstream contract theories which view contractual obligations as the result of a binding promise. Proponents of the"
"end the war against France: United States Senator Robert J. Walker (1801–1869), a staunch opponent of the Bank of the United States, delivered a speech in the Senate on January 21, 1840, where he warned that the acceptance of paper money as legal tender would ""overthrow the Constitution, subvert the liberties of the country, and the rights of the people, and establish the reign of a bankocracy, more sordid, ruinous, and despotic, than that of any monarch, however absolute."" Pierre-Joseph Proudhon used the term in his work ""Les Confessions d’un révolutionnaire"" (1849), in reference to the July Monarchy: The term"
"generally that: ""Non est factum"" is difficult to claim as it does not allow for negligence on the part of the signatory, i.e. failure to read a contract before signing it, or carelessness, will not allow for ""non est factum"". Furthermore, the Court has noted that there is a heavy onus that must be discharged to establish this defence as it as an ""exceptional defence."" In ""Petelin v Cullen"" (1975), the defendant, Petelin, was illiterate and could speak very little English, but still signed a document he believed to be a receipt for $50 but actually gave Cullen the option"
"is to say: 'We do not have enough wit to reply to it.'"" The work was also banned in Paris. The work received a refutation called ""The Confusion of the Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau"" by the Jesuit Alfonso Muzzarelli in Italy in 1794. The Social Contract The Social Contract, originally published as On the Social Contract; or, Principles of Political Rights () by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is a 1762 book in which Rousseau theorized about the best way to establish a political community in the face of the problems of commercial society, which he had already identified in his ""Discourse"
"1925 section 40 is not fulfilled (now LPMPA 1989 section 2) did not mean an oral agreement would not bind because that section merely made it unenforceable, not void, in absence of writing. This was based on mutual agreement, not a course of dealings, but expressed no final opinion. Pennycuick LJ said that a course of dealings is a distinct head, not a subheading of mutual agreement. As the three judges found there was severance, at £750, this was the amount declared to be payable in law to the executrix of Rawnsley, less than the half of the sale proceeds"
"person who drafted the contract. An example of this is the insurance contract mentioned above, which is a good example of an adhesion contract. There, the insurance company is the party completely in control of the terms of the contract and is generally in a better position to, for example, avoid contractual forfeiture. This is a longstanding principle: see, for example, California Civil Code §1654 (“In cases of uncertainty ... the language of a contract should be interpreted most strongly against the party who caused the uncertainty to exist""), which was enacted in 1872. Numerous other states have also codified"
"Simple contract In contract law, a simple contract is a contract made orally or in writing, rather than a contract made under seal. Simple contracts require consideration to be valid, but simple contracts may be implied from the conduct of parties bound by the contract. William Blackstone observed in his ""Commentaries on the Laws of England"" that in the seventeenth century, debtors used simple contracts as one of three accepted forms of unsecured debt instruments. In 1828, the Parliament of the United Kingdom amended the statute of frauds so that oral acknowledgments or promises could not be used as evidence"
"a statement is a term, and the contracting party has not signed a document, then terms may be incorporated by reference to other sources, or through a course of dealing. The basic rule, set out in ""Parker v South Eastern Railway Company"", is that reasonable notice of a term is required to bind someone. Here Mr Parker left his coat in the Charing Cross railway station cloakroom and was given a ticket that on the back said liability for loss was limited to £10. The Court of Appeal sent this back to trial for a jury (as existed at the"
"Title-transfer theory of contract The title-transfer theory of contract (TTToC) is a legal interpretation of contracts developed by economist Murray Rothbard and jurist Williamson Evers. The theory interprets all contractual obligations in terms of property rights, viewing a contract as a bundle of title transfers. The TTToC stands in oppositions to most mainstream contract theories which view contractual obligations as the result of a binding promise. Proponents of the approach often claim it is superior on grounds of both consistency and ethical considerations. The TTToC is often supported by libertarians. The TTToC considers a contract to be a transfer of"
"edition was published in 1995, which was edited with a new introduction by Ronald K.L. Collins. Gilmore begins the introduction forcefully, stating ""We are told that Contract, like God, is dead. And so it is."" Gilmore then brings us through the life of Contract, from birth to death. He notes that courts had been deciding contract law for centuries before the theory of contracts was introduced by Christopher Columbus Langdell. This assertion, that Langdell ""invented"" the general theory of contracts is somewhat contested by contracts scholars, with Richard Austen-Baker, for example, pointing out the lack of any evidence of any"
"The Social Contract The Social Contract, originally published as On the Social Contract; or, Principles of Political Rights () by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is a 1762 book in which Rousseau theorized about the best way to establish a political community in the face of the problems of commercial society, which he had already identified in his ""Discourse on Inequality"" (1754). ""The Social Contract"" helped inspire political reforms or revolutions in Europe, especially in France. ""The Social Contract"" argued against the idea that monarchs were divinely empowered to legislate. Rousseau asserts that only the people, who are sovereign, have that all-powerful right."
"overt indebtedness to Wittgenstein's later philosophy. J. L. Austin John Langshaw Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February 1960) was a British philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, perhaps best known for developing the theory of speech acts. Austin pointed out that we use language to ""do"" things as well as to ""assert"" things, and that the utterance of a statement like ""I promise to do so-and-so"" is best understood as ""doing"" something — ""making a promise"" — rather than making an assertion about anything. Hence the name of one of his best-known works ""How to"
"Section 4 being circumvented by bringing an action against a verbal guarantor for the tort of deceit (the tort in ""Freeman v. Palsey""). A common summary of the law is ""a verbal guarantee (for a debt) isn't worth the paper it is written on"". Provisions in section 4 as to formalities for contracts for the sale of land were repealed by Schedule 7 to the Law of Property Act 1925 (15 Geo 5 c 20), however the requirement that contracts for the sale of land be evidenced in writing was maintained by section 40 of that Act, subsequently replaced by"
"signs a contractual document will be bound by the terms in that document, this rule is referred to as the rule in ""L'Estrange v Graucob"". This rule is approved by the High Court of Australia in ""Toll(FGCT) Pty Ltd v Alphapharm Pty Ltd"". But a valid contract may (with some exceptions) be made orally or even by conduct. Remedies for breach of contract include damages (monetary compensation for loss) and, for serious breaches only, repudiation (i.e. cancellation). The equitable remedy of specific performance, enforceable through an injunction, may be available if damages are insufficient. Typically, contracts are oral or written,"
"entered a contract for RTS to do the work for an agreed price, but that did not include the final draft version of the MF/1 terms. The Court of Appeal held no contract arose after the letter of intent expiry at all. Molkerei argued there was a contract of expiry, not on the MF/1 terms, and RTS argued there was no contract, or if there was it was on MF/1 terms, as amended through the negotiations. Lord Clarke held that it was too dogmatic to say the ""subject to contract"" terms would be the ones that were binding, because it"