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Contract Law — Durham University notes | caselaw

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Contract Law

Contract Law on the Durham University LLB Law (Year 1). The law of agreements: when a promise becomes legally binding, what its terms mean, when it can be escaped, and what happens when it is broken. The backbone of the first-year qualifying-law syllabus.

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Offer and acceptance

Contract formation begins with objective assent, not private intention or moral expectation.

Certainty and intention to create legal relations

Binding force depends on objective seriousness and workable terms, not merely moral commitment.

Consideration and promissory estoppel

Consideration supplies the bargain requirement; estoppel polices reliance without becoming a general substitute for contract.

Terms — express and implied

Contractual terms determine not merely whether parties are bound, but what they are bound to do.

Exclusion clauses and UCTA / CRA

Exclusion clauses reveal how consent, notice, construction and statutory control discipline contractual risk allocation.

Misrepresentation

Misrepresentation polices pre-contractual falsity without converting every negotiating statement into a contractual promise.

Mistake polices the boundary between failed consent, bad bargains, and allocated contractual risk.

Duress and undue influence

Pressure and trust unsettle bargains where apparent consent is procured by coercion or relational abuse.

Illegality and public policy

Illegality asks when legal order, not private intention, must defeat contractual enforcement.

Privity of contract

Privity marks the boundary between contractual autonomy and the claims of intended beneficiaries.

Discharge by performance and breach

Performance discharges the bargain; breach tests whether the innocent party may end it.

Frustration marks the narrow boundary between contractual risk and legally recognised supervening impossibility.

Damages — expectation and reliance

Expectation is the remedial norm; reliance is its evidential and doctrinal counterpoint.

Remoteness and mitigation

Remoteness and mitigation define the outer boundary of compensation for contractual breach.

Specific performance and injunctions

Equity enforces bargains only where damages are inadequate and coercion remains just.

Restitution and unjust enrichment

Restitution explains when contract law must reverse transfers rather than enforce promises.

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