Definition and brief history of the Law of Contract.

  

Date Posted: 2/7/2012 4:51:27 AM

Posted By: maxwellgoko  Membership Level: Bronze  Total Points: 45

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Definition of a contact

To a lay man, a contract is simply a legal written agreement between two parties. This definition is however not accurate enough to be used in the law of contracts. Several definitions have been brought about to explain the term contract.
According to English writer Pollock Macneil in his book ‘’Contracts: Instruments of Social Co-operation, a contract is a promise or set of promises which the law will enforce.
Treitel, on the law of contract, defines a contract as an agreement giving rise to legally enforceable obligations, binding the parties to it. The factor which distinguishes contractual obligations from other obligations is the agreement made between the two parties.

Brief History.
Contract law developed around a form of action known as the action of assumpist, which came into effect in the early 16th century as a remedy for the breach of informal agreements made by word of mouth. The common law courts acquired a general jurisdiction over both formal and informal contracts around the 15th century. In setting out the elements of a contract law, it was important to differentiate between formal and informal contracts. As obviously expected, formal contracts were absorbed into the common law before the informal contracts.
Important contracts were made in writings and it was important to seal the written documents. The contracts made became actionable by common law by either of two forms of action.
The covenant action, which came into effect around the 13th century, originated as an action for the specific performance of agreements to do something, for example to build a house, etc; as opposed to agreement to pay a definite amount of money. This developed into an action of damages, which was assessed by the jury for the wrong of breaking a covenant. It was later limited to agreements under

seal, hence the term covenant came to mean ‘’agreement under seal’’.

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