Lucy V Zehmer - Grade: A PDF

Preview

Summary

Lucy V Zehmer Case Analysis...

Description

Case Analysis: Lucy V Zehmer Lacey Workman Southern New Hampshire University

 Identify the contractual element Zehmer contended was missing. Zehmer stated that the entire night was a joke. The contract was written on a napkin, and that he did not really WANT to sell. He also says that even though his wife witnessed and signed that he had whispered to her when signing the contract that both parties had drawn up that it was a joke, and he was not actually going to sell. He goes further to mention that they had been drinking, and he was drunk.  Summarize the court ruling and explain the reason for the ruling. The court ruled with the defendant (Zehmer) at first, but that decision was appealed. Judge Buchanan ruled in favor of the plaintiff (Lucy) for many reasons. One being the contract. It was written in black and white and a deal had been made. The defendant argued that he had been joking, but here is the thing. “We must look to the outward expression of a person as manifesting his intention rather than to his secret and unexpressed intention” (Kubasek, N., Browne, M. N., Herron, D., Dhooge, L., & Barkacs, L. (2020). Saying something else in secret to someone else not involved in the deal you are making does not change the fact that they believe they are making a valid deal.

 Agree or disagree with the ruling and include a rationale to support your ideas. “We must look to the outward expression of a person as manifesting his intention rather than to his secret and unexpressed intention” (Kubasek, N., Browne, M. N., Herron, D., Dhooge, L., & Barkacs, L. (2020). Yes I am using this quote again, because I love it for one, and for two it applies here also. I agree with the ruling entirely. For more reasons than one. IF it was a joke, it was a mean one. Lucy had been trying to buy this property for years and to try and play on someone’s want and emotion for something is wrong. For two, you cannot agree to something and go as far as writing it down on paper. Making a contract and arguing about the details of that contract to just try and take it all back and claim to be joking. That does not seem like a joke at all. My mom always said you are free to make your own choices, but you are not free from the consequences of those choices. That is probably said by a lot of people, but the reality in this case is that even if it was a joke, Zehmer made a conscious choice to treat it like a business transaction. Therefore he lost his land because of that choice.

 Summarize a personal experience in which you entered into a contract that you did not think of as a binding contract at the time.

I can’t personally think of a time that I have been in this situation myself, but I can think of a time that is sort of a reversed situation like this over a pickup truck. My little brother is 4 years younger than me, our neighbor was my age and we were getting ready to graduate. My brother really wanted this 77 Chevy that our neighbor had driven all through highschool. My brother asked the neighbor if he came up with the $3000 would he sell it to him. My brother worked every odd job he could, plus his regular job and came up with the money only to find out that the neighbor was not interested in selling. He was under the impression they had a verbal contract, but in reality, that was not really the case.  Consider which elements of a contract were in place and which were missing. The only real element of a contract that was in place was that the price was talked about that he needed to make to buy it. But there was no end date, there was no form of paperwork signed, nothing legally binding. My brother asked a hypothetical question considering he did not even have three thousand dollars to his name at that time, and in the 6 months it took him to earn that money many things can change like the willingness of the neighbor to want to part with his highschool vehicle. There was definitely hard feelings, but legally the neighbor had not done anything wrong besides have a casual conversation about what he would maybe sell his truck for.

References Kubasek, N., Browne, M. N., Herron, D., Dhooge, L., & Barkacs, L. (2020). Dynamics Business Law(5th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education....