Evelyn owns and runs an electronics hire business, Electric Blues. When Weitao hires a projector from Electric Blues, he is asked to sign a document containing the details of the projector and the duration for which he will be hiring it. At the bottom of the page there is a note in small print: “If any damage is caused to the item being hired, the customer is liable to pay a $1000 replacement fee.”
Weitao checks the details at the top of the document but doesn’t bother to read the smaller print at the bottom. He signs it and takes the projector home.
While using the projector Weitao accidentally scratches its casing. While returning the projector to the store the following week, he offers to pay to have the casing fixed. Evelyn insists that Weitao owes her $1000 to replace the entire projector.
1. Is Weitao bound by the note in small print about the $1000 replacement fee? (6 marks)
Evelyn is carrying out some improvements to the layout and décor of her store. She hires Warren to paint the internal walls of the store. Warren accepts the job, but says that the painting will take a full day to complete, and then a full day to dry. Evelyn agrees.
Over the next five weeks, every time that Warren calls Evelyn to suggest a date for the painting, she says that she can’t close the store that week, due to important deliveries arriving or customer delays. She also refuses to suggest a future date for Warren to complete the painting.
Warren is upset. He complains that Evelyn is making it impossible for him to get the benefit of their contract, and that this is something all contractual parties must do.
2. Is Warren correct? (4 marks)
Ambreena comes into the store and speaks with Evelyn. ‘I need a tablet that I can use to complete an important project while I am travelling overseas.’
‘No problem,’ says Evelyn. ‘This tablet here is nice and light, so good for travelling. In my view it also has a lot of storage space compared with most tablets nowadays.’
Ambreena rents the tablet to take overseas. When she tries to install the apps needed to complete her project, she finds that the storage space on the tablet is actually quite limited.
3. Is it a term of Ambreena’s hire agreement that the tablet has more storage space than most tablets on the market? (4 marks)
Jake comes to hire a laptop from Evelyn’s store. After choosing a laptop, filling out the paperwork, and taking the laptop home, Jake realises that there is no charger cable in the laptop bag. He calls the store and speaks to Evelyn.
‘Well, you never said you needed a charger as well,’ says Evelyn. ‘It will cost you extra if you want to hire the charger too.’
Jake says that he never thought to ask for the charger, as he assumed it would be included.
4. Is there an implied term in Jake’s hire agreement, that a charger will be provided with the laptop being hired? (6 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 summarised 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 Management 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.
