Lecture 1- The Australian Legal System - Business Law for Business Students PDF

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Lecture 11:: The Aust Australian ralian Legal Syst System em Law reporting systems Meehan v Jones (1982) 149 CLR 571 This case considered the issue of certainty and whether or not a contract that provided for a subject to finance clause was illusory. HELD: Mason looked at cases which support the alternative honest / honest and reasonable requirements the latter being based on an implied promise in some cases. Mason pointed out at 2 places in his judgment that he had no present need to decide the question.The  implication of the word "honest" adds nothing, and there is no justification for implying that the purchaser must act reasonably. The parties can limit the discretion by the clause if they wish, but otherwise, the discretion is unlimited.He  agreed with Mason and added the following ambiguous comments. The court will imply no greater obligation upon the party than that he is obliged to act honestly. Clearly he must make reasonable efforts to secure finance. Like Mason Wilson refrained from expressing a concluded view. Causer v Brown [1952] VLR 1 This case considered the issue of terms of a contract and whether or not a document handed over to a customer from a dry cleaner contained legally binding conditions exempting the dry cleaner for liability for loss or damage of the garment given to the dry cleaner for cleaning.

HELD: It depends on what you see as being part of the offer and acceptance. There is no difficulty if the customer actually knows of the limitation and accepts it. If not, then in effect, the customer is relying on an estoppel. Did customer know that there were some conditions and accept them without further inquiry? Has the assistant done everything possible to bring the terms to the attention of the other party? Did the person know that what they were receiving was more than just a voucher? There was no evidence to show that it was the practice to incorporate terms in this way for cleaning purposes. The ticket cases did not apply because D had not established that the document would be reasonably understood as stating the terms of the contract....