Business Conversation

Mary, a frail but mentally sound 87-year old woman, is in the front garden of her old weatherboard home. Duncan, a big man who was heavily tattooed and wearing leathers, parks his motorbike outside her garden and strikes up a conversation with Mary. He told Mary that: “I am a licensed painter and I could paint the exterior of your house for a good price – $8000”. Mary obviously felt intimidated by Duncan and hastily agreed. The next day Duncan arrived and over the next two days painted her house. During this time Mary discovered from her daughter’s inquiries that had Mary received competitive quotes for the painting work, the going rate for painting her house was about $4000. Her daughter also discovered that Duncan’s registration as a licensed painter had lapsed two weeks ago because he had forgotten to pay the renewal fee. The job is now complete and Duncan has asked Mary for $8000. Prepare a brief indicating whether Mary can rescind the contract. Provide legal principle to support your arguments. The brief should comprise of facts, legal principle, analysis, and conclusion.

A contract denotes the drawing up of promise between two parties, where the elements of offer, acceptance, consideration, intention, clarity and capacity are present. A contract binds the parties in a lawful manner and it remains binding on the parties (Eggers, 2016). Vitiating factors in any contract are something, which have the power of getting the contract rescinded, at the option of the aggrieved party. There are majorly five vitiating factors which can be found in any contract and these are mistake, misrepresentation, undue influence, duress, and illegality (Ayus, 2011).

Misrepresentation refers to a false statement of law or fact being made by one party, to the other party, so that the other party can be made to enter into the contract. As the statement made in the case of Esso Petroleum v Mardon [1976] QB 801 was regarding an estimate of future, a case of misrepresentation could not stand (E-Law Resources, 2017a). When a misrepresentation is established in the contract, the contract becomes voidable at the option of the aggrieved party. And it can also be set aside by the aggrieved party. In order for the misrepresentation to be established, it is crucial that the person had been forced into entering the contract and in case of this cannot be proved, the right of getting the contract rescinded is not available with the claimant, as was held in the case of Horsfall v Thomas [1862] 1 H&C 90 (E-Law Resources, 2017b).