A Casebook on Contract

Citation

Burrows, A. (2020). A Casebook on Contract (7th ed.). Hart Publishing.

Chapter Summary

Structure and Method

The casebook is organised in five parts and fifteen chapters. Each chapter opens with an introduction to the topic by the author, then reproduces extracts from the leading cases and the relevant statutes, with short notes and questions that steer the reader through them. Each chapter also summarises leading academic articles and gives cross-references to the main textbooks. The seventh edition (2020) is described by the publisher as fully updated and as covering the undergraduate contract course without growing too long.

Part One: The Formation of a Contract

Chapter 1, Offer and Acceptance, moves from an introduction through offers and invitations to treat, acceptance, termination of an offer, and problematic offer and acceptance, the area where cases such as Harvey v Facey and the "battle of the forms" in Butler Machine Tool v Ex-Cell-O are usually discussed.

Chapter 2, Certainty and Intention to Create Legal Relations, covers whether terms are certain enough to enforce and when social, domestic or commercial arrangements are meant to be legally binding (for example Hillas v Arcos and Balfour v Balfour).

Chapter 3, Consideration and Promissory Estoppel, treats consideration and then promissory estoppel as a separate topic, the setting for Williams v Roffey Bros on pre-existing duties and Central London Property Trust v High Trees House.

Part Two: The Terms of a Contract

Chapter 4, Identifying the Terms, separates terms from mere representations, deals with incorporation of a party's written terms (signature and notice, as in L'Estrange v Graucob) and with implied terms.

Chapter 5, Interpreting the Terms, sets out the modern approach to construction and the special treatment of exemption clauses.

Chapter 6, Statutory Control of Exemption Clauses and Unfair Terms, takes the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and Part 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in turn.

Part Three: Remedies for Breach of Contract

Chapter 7, Termination, covers the meaning of termination for breach, conditions, warranties and innominate terms (Hong Kong Fir), termination clauses, anticipatory breach, restitution after termination and consumer contracts for goods or digital content.

Chapter 8, Damages, deals with compensatory damages, an account of profits, negotiating damages, and agreed damages and penalties (including Attorney General v Blake and the rules of remoteness from Hadley v Baxendale).

Chapter 9, Direct Enforcement, covers the award of an agreed sum, specific performance and injunctions.

Part Four: Privity of Contract and Third Party Rights

Chapter 10 examines the privity doctrine and its benefit-side and burden-side exceptions, the promisee's own remedies where a contract benefits a third party, and the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999, with cases such as Tweddle v Atkinson and Beswick v Beswick.

Part Five: Factors Allowing Escape from a Contract

Chapter 11, Misrepresentation, covers its requirements, rescission, damages, and the control of exclusion under section 3 of the Misrepresentation Act 1967.

Chapter 12, Mistake, treats unilateral and common mistake.

Chapter 13, Frustration, takes the early absolute-liability approach, the kinds of event that frustrate, factors excluding frustration, the juristic basis, the effects of frustration, and the relationship with common mistake.

Chapter 14, Duress, distinguishes duress of the person and economic duress.

Chapter 15, Undue Influence and Exploitation of Weakness, closes the book with undue influence and the exploitation of weakness.

Key Concepts

Part One: Formation

• Offer and invitation to treat: the line between a statement that can be accepted to make a contract and one that merely invites offers.
• Consideration: what each party must give in exchange for an enforceable promise, tested against pre-existing duties.
• Promissory estoppel: a doctrine preventing a promisor from going back on a promise to relinquish rights, discussed separately from consideration.

Parts Two and Three: Terms and Remedies

• Incorporation and construction: how terms become part of the contract and how courts read them.
• Unfair terms control: the statutory limits on exemption clauses under the 1977 Act and the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
• Termination and damages: when a party may end the contract for breach and how loss is compensated.

Parts Four and Five: Third Parties and Escape

• Privity: the rule that only parties can sue on a contract, and the 1999 Act's reform of it.
• Vitiating factors: misrepresentation, mistake, duress and undue influence, together with frustration as a supervening event.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Cases read in their own words. The book's purpose is to let students read highlights from the leading cases, with expert introductions and short notes and questions.
• Statutes and scholarship alongside the cases. The publisher notes the relevant statutes are set out with analysis of them, and each chapter summarises leading academic articles.
• Controlled length. The publisher description stresses that the book is designed not to overwhelm students while covering the undergraduate curriculum; a Student Law Journal quotation on the publisher's page praises its mix of commentary and selected materials.
• Clear sequence. The order, formation, terms, remedies, privity, and escape from a contract, follows a common course structure.

Limitations

• A companion, not a full textbook. It is intended to be used on its own or to supplement a textbook, and the extracts do the work, so it is less suited to a first encounter with the subject than an explanatory textbook.
• Coverage tied to the undergraduate syllabus. Topics beyond the core course, such as detailed commercial or comparative analysis, are outside its aim.
• Law is of a date. The seventh edition is from 2020, so later cases and statutory changes require a newer source.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the cases-and-materials book of the contract course. Poole's Textbook on Contract Law, Chen-Wishart's Contract Law and Taylor and Taylor's Contract Law Directions explain the rules in prose; Anson's Law of Contract is a detailed treatise; Stephen Smith's Contracting Under Pressure is a specialist theory of duress. The casebook sits beside the textbooks, giving the primary materials that those books summarise.

It pairs best with one explanatory textbook, using the casebook for the judgments and the textbook for the framework. Its Chapter 14 can be read with Smith's monograph for a deeper look at duress.

How to Use This Book

The book is for law students taking a first contract course in England and Wales who want to read the cases themselves. Little preparation is needed beyond a textbook or lecture outline, since the author's introductions frame each topic.

A plan: read the Part One chapters first, since offer, acceptance and consideration underlie everything else; then Parts Two and Three, which carry most of the exam material on terms, termination and damages; then Parts Four and Five. For each case extract, state the facts, the issue and the reasoning before reading the author's notes and questions, and use the article summaries to find further reading. Treat the notes as prompts for essay questions.