Common Law
Assignment Assignment Questions Fran runs a small business called Fran’s Fine Treats, supplying gourmet chocolates to food stores and health spas. Recently her products have grown in popularity, and the business is growing significantly. Fran decides to hire an assistant to help her with deliveries. She approaches her brother Marco, who owns a van. Marco was planning to take on a well-paying job opportunity in a nearby town, but he agrees to stay local instead, so that he can help Fran grow her business. Marco is concerned about wear and tear on his van, and about insurance in case he is involved in a traffic accident while making deliveries. So he wants to make sure the arrangement with Fran is formalized.
He gets the advice of a lawyer, who helps to draft an employment agreement setting out hours, rate of pay, reimbursement for fuel and maintenance costs, responsibility for vehicle insurance and various other details. After both Fran and Marco have inspected the document prepared by the lawyer, and discussed all its contents, they both sign it and have their signatures witnessed. Two days later, Fran regrets her decision and wants to hire her niece Jane instead.
1. Is Fran bound by the written agreement with Marco? (5 marks)
As Fran’s business is expanding, she needs more room for preparing and storing her chocolates. On her daily walks with her dog, she has noticed a small warehouse space near her house, which has a ‘closing down sale’ sign displayed at the front. She knocks and enters the premises, and speaks to Octavia who is packing boxes inside. Octavia is the owner of the space, but is planning to move interstate. He is looking for someone to rent the space after he is gone. “I’d like to get the matter sorted quickly – if I can find a tenant before I leave, then I won’t need to pay a real estate agent to find one for me. I’ve already got a draft lease agreement covering all the essentials.” Fran thinks the location will be perfect for her business, but she is concerned that the kitchen at the warehouse doesn’t have an extractor fan.
She says this to Octavia and he says that he will organise and pay for installation of a fan, as long as she is serious about renting the property. Fran reassures him that she is, but that she wants time to look at the draft lease agreement properly before signing it and returning it to him. Octavia emails Fran with the agreement and says that he has booked someone to come and install a fan. He says in the email, ‘please let me know if you’re not going to go ahead, in which case I’ll cancel the fan installation.’ Fran responds saying ‘Everything’s fine. I’ll look at the lease tonight and bring it around to the warehouse tomorrow.’
That afternoon, an electrician comes and installs the fan into the kitchen at the warehouse. Later the same evening, Fran discusses her plans with some friends. They encourage her to consider opening her own shop, rather than only selling the chocolates to other businesses for retail. Fran now thinks that a warehouse setting will not be appropriate. She decides to look for a shop front in an area with good visibility and foot traffic. First thing the next morning, Fran contacts Octavia and announces that she will no longer be renting the warehouse space.
2. Does the doctrine of promissory estoppel apply to Fran and Octavia? (6 marks)
Fran finds a shop suitable for her business, and enters into a lease agreement without any troubles. She then advertises online for an assistant to help her in the shop. After interviewing several applicants, she decides on Dante. He is keen to learn and has some experience as an amateur chef. Fran hires Dante as an apprentice chocolatier. Their written agreement contains a restraint of trade clause.
This clause forbids Dante from opening a competitor business in the same area or supplying to the same clients as Fran’s business, for one year after leaving the apprenticeship. Six months into the apprenticeship, Dante feels he has learned all that he can from Fran. He quits. Two weeks after Dante has gone, Fran finds out that he has approached several of her clients, and has begun providing two of them with similar gourmet chocolates at a lower price. Fran wants to enforce the restraint of trade clause, but Dante says that the employment contract isn’t binding on him.
4. Is Arjun entitled to the month’s supply of free chocolates? (4 marks) Guide to citation for the Common Law assignment Legal citation is different to other styles of citation, such as Harvard or other in-text citation. Legal citation involves providing the most relevant legal authority for any statement of legal rules or principles. Citations are provided in footnotes. (If you’re working in MS Word, simply go to the ‘References’ tab and click on ‘Insert Footnote’.) For the purposes of LST2BSL Introduction to Business Law and Ethics, we do not expect you to learn the Australian Legal Guide to Citation, which is the usual approach to legal citation in Australia. That Guide is incredibly complex. Instead, you can simply follow these instructions for citations in your Common Law assignment.
As stated above in the Assignment Instructions, where you state a legal principle which comes from a case, you must provide a citation to the relevant case. You are not expected to read the cases themselves: as long as a case is summarized in the textbook, you can cite the case itself. An example of this would be if you said this in your assignment: If a letter of comfort includes statements which are not promissory, then it probably was not intended to be legally binding.1 Alternatively, you could mention the case name in the sentence of your assignment itself, and just put the case citation in a footnote, like this: As in the case of Commonwealth Bank of Australia v TLI Get research paper samples and course-specific study resources under homework for you course hero writing service – Manage ment Pty Ltd2 a letter of comfort with only non-promissory statements was probably not intended as legally binding.
Either way, we expect you to provide a citation to the relevant case for the legal principle you are stating. If you are stating a legal principle that is covered in the textbook or lecture and which does not have a relevant case provided in the textbook, you should cite the textbook. An example of this would be: If an agreement is executed as a deed then there is no requirement for both parties to provide consideration.3 Please also note that you are not expected to use any materials beyond the lectures and the set textbook. But if you do, you must provide appropriate citations. No bibliography is required.
Finally, remember that footnote citations do not count towards your word count, so don’t hesitate to provide citations for any statement of legal principle. If in doubt, provide a citation. 1 Commonwealth Bank of Australia v TLI Get research paper samples and course-specific study resources under homework for you course hero writing service – Manage ment Pty Ltd [1990] VR 510. 2 [1990] VR 510. 3 Michael Lambiris and Laura Griffin, First Principles of Business Law (Oxford University Press, 2017, 10th edition) 83. ———————– I am also adding the pdf folder for better understanding. But AVOID question 3. No NEED to answer question 3. And also please read the Instruction very carefully. Business Law Assignment: I need help writing a research paper.
