Contract Law: From Trust to Promise to Contract (HLS2X) | Introduction | What is a Contract?

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July 13, 2020 

Contract Law: From Trust to Promise to Contract (HLS2X) 

Introduction | What is a Contract? 

Instructor Charles Fried, Beneficial Professor of Law: 

My re-written lecture notes for Introduction, What is a Contract hyperlink: https://1drv.ms/b/s!Ar6iJPTO61dwwyC901E4IQqmkieY?e=MqEoKL

 Contracts are everywhere-- not just some huge formal agreement between large corporations, where one is going to buy the other, and so on, although that is what large corporations’ contracts does during a normal functions in their businesses, as a matter of fact, contract is everywhere. We all go through contracts; however, I do not know, how many times in the course of a day; you have personally gone through some form of contracts. For example, you go into a parking garage in your vehicle. The parking lot attendant gives, you a stub. Now, this stub is a contract. Those parking lot attendants are going to look; after, your vehicle, more or less. And, you are going to pay them. Here is another example, you walk into your dry cleaner store and, you drop off your suit. And, the person behind the desk gives you a receipt. Well, your receipt is important, because your receipt is how those dry cleaner employees are going to know, which suit is yours, and your receipt is also, a contract. Even if, there was not a receipt, you are dropping your dry cleaning off at the dry cleaner store and, coming back a couple of days later and picking up your suit. Well, the dry cleaner store’s owner[s] expects to get paid, and you are expected to pay them. This is a contract.

Let us say, you walk into a restaurant and, you order steak, chips, and everything else onto the restaurant menu then you get the check, and you pay your restaurant bill.  You know, you cannot just say, well, this is very nice. Thank you very much for your restaurant dinner and, you had not paid your restaurant bill then you say, see you tomorrow.  You must understand your non-verbalized contractual agreement when you sat down at the restaurant table knowingly and willfully you have participated into a non-verbalized contractual agreement between you and the restaurant owner[s]; after, their staff[s] had served you. And, their restaurant’s staff[s] had serviced you, your meals and, you are feed. Now, you have a non-verbalized contractual agreement to pay the restaurant owner[s] for their restaurant meals and services.  And, your restaurant non-verbalized contractual agreement was established the moment you sat down at the restaurant owner[s] table and order your restaurant meals. Therefore, contracts becomes even less formal than what I (Professor Fried) had mentioned above.

 Let us say, you live in New England, and we have a lot of snowstorms in the winter. So, what happens? The snow falls and, accumulates in New England then a bunch of local kids come knocking at your door and, say, sir or madam, can we shovel out your driveway, walkway and so on. You say to the local kids, how much? And, one of the local kid had replied, twenty ($20) dollars then you say, okay.  So, the local kids shovel out your driveway and walkway from a verbalized contractual agreement on a fixed amount to pay them. After, the local kids had completed shoveling out your driveway and walkway then the local kids knock on your door; again, for payment in an exchanged from your verbalized contractual agreement with them to shovel out your driveway and walkway for a particular amount. You owe them twenty ($20) dollars and, these local kids performed their shoveling duties, not as a favor to you because these kids had performed a completed their function of shoveling your snow, as a duties and, their contract has been fulfilled for payment based on their verbalized contract agreement with you.

Now, contracts get more complicated than stated herein. For example, you are out of town, and it snows, again. And, while you are out of town, these local kids come to your property, and these local kids shovel out your driveway and walkway then when you have returned home and, these same local kids say to you; you owe us thirty ($30) dollars, please.  Well, the question is, do you have a contract with those local kids or not? We will find out later whether you do or not. And, what if, it snows the way it did a couple of years ago, an accumulation of  eighteen (18) inches? And, these same local kids say, well, we had a lot of work to do, and they really had a lot of snow to shovel. This time, those same local kids say, you owe us thirty ($30) dollars. Do you owe those local kids, thirty ($30) dollars?

These types of contracts’ conundrums, we are going to try to understand. Now, you might ask, why do we have a Massive Open Online Course (“MOOC”) on Contract Law: From Trust to Promise to Contract?  And, why am I (Professor Fried) asking you to join him (Professor Fried) for a really quite a number of sessions in a lot of assignments in an exchanged contract agreement between you (as a MOOC student participating in Harvard Law School Research) and I (Professor Fried) will supply these online Contract Law interpretations, presentations, and applications in theories skillsets and assessments, as a research academic data tools? Frist (1^st)  explanation, I (Professor Fried) am going to tell you, I am not going to turn you into a lawyer. I (Professor Fried) am not going to teach you, how to draft a contract or deal with a situation where somebody sues you or a person file a claim against you. These are not my (Professor Fried) goals for this MOOC on Contract Law: From Trust to Promise to Contract, course.

What I (Professor Fried) am going to teach you are the understanding, what is going on, as you go through your lives, in a contract jungle, or maybe not a jungle, but a forest. And, these contract law interpretations, presentations, and  applications in theories are not so unfriendly, as you may think. It is, as if, I (Professor Fried) were offering to teach, you a course on the internal combustion engine. Now, this would not be a course on how to fix your vehicle when your vehicle breaks down or does not break down, but understanding, what is going on under the hood of any vehicles. So, if your service station staff then tells you; you need to replace your transmission and a new transmission is going to cost you fifteen hundred ($1,500) dollars.  You will know, what a transmission is, and you will know whether the transmission should cost for the repair; and, this kind of makes sense for the transmission to cost round about fifteen hundred ($1,500) dollars. In other words, what have you learned and achieved from MOOC on Contract Law: From Trust to Promise to Contract tutorials and assessments; after, you have completed this course, in order for you to understand contracts in your environments.