Breach of contract between eBay users Breach of contract between eBay users Bob bids on an item on eBay. He wins the auction. The seller, perhaps disappointed at the price the item had fetched, promptly&quot;cancels the order&quot; on spurious grounds of &quot;issues with the buyer's delivery address&quot;, when the auction was for collection from the seller's address by the buyer. The seller immediately relists the item with identical description and a rare enough item as it is with a higher starting price, thus breaking the contract. Bob hadn't yet had a chance to pay for the item before the seller cancelled it so there is no question of seeking a refund but does the contract of winning the auction not bind the seller as well as the buyer? Bob hadn't paid so have lost any money but he stole wants the item he won. How can he compel the seller to cancel the new auction and sell him the item as they contracted to do? Related: Lost merchandise: Replacement or refund
How can he compel the seller to cancel the new auction and sell him the item as they contracted to do? Expectation damages are the typical remedy for breach of contract The general measure of damages for breach of contract is expectation damages: &quot;the plaintiff will be entitled to the value of the promised performance&quot; (Bank of America Canada v. Mutual Trust Co., 2002 SCC 43 at paragraph 26); &quot;the purpose of expectation damages is to put the plaintiff in the same position it would have been if the contract had been performed (Grandeur Homes Inc. v. Zeng, 2021 ONSC 4005 at paragraph 19). This is a general principle of common-law contract law rooted in English jurisprudence. See Robinson v. Harman (1848) 1 Ex. 850, p. 855: The rule of the common law is, that where a party sustains a loss by reason of a breach of contract, he is, so far as money can do it, to be placed in the same situation, with respect to damages, as if the contract had been performed. This was recently confirmed by the U.K. Supreme Court in Morris-Garner v. One Step (Support) Ltd., [2018] UKSC 20: Damage for breach of contract are ... a substitute for performance. That is why they are generally regarded as an adequate remedy. The courts will not prevent self-interested breaches of contract where the interests of the innocent party can be adequately protected by an award of damages. Specific performance is not usual Specific performance (cancelling the new auction and forcing the first sale) is an exceptional remedy for breach of contract. Specific performance is an equitable remedy. As an equitable remedy, it is always discretionary; the wronged party does not have a right to specific performance. Specific performance may be ordered when: expectation damages are inadequate as a remedy where the contract was for a sale of a particular piece of land (but even this has been limited in some jurisdictions to circumstances where the property is particularly unique) difficulty in quantifying damages Specific performance is typically not ordered when a substitute is available by which expectation damages would be demonstrated. See generally Chitty on Contracts, §30-015–30-025.
It is cl;early not legal to charge for an optional warranty without ever having gotten approval for it. The customer could simply ask for a refund on teh ground that this was an error, and take it to small claims if that was refused. I am sure it is legal to offer such an optional warranty and point out its (alleged) benefits. I do not know if consumer law forbids making this pitch multiple times in the same selling encounter.
Am I able to extraordinary terminate this contract due to missing equipment, although I technically should have know that it was missing before I signed? No (I'll assume that your jurisdiction is somewhere in the U.S., although many other countries apply contract law similarly). First, your statement that technically you should have known about the flaws [before signing] reflects that the contract does not misrepresent what equipment the gym has. Second, using the gym for six months evidences your satisfaction with the contractual relation. The parties' conduct reinforces the validity of a contract, whence a party's subsequent change of mind does not entitle him or her to breach that contract. You might be entitled to terminate the contract prematurely if (1) the flaws pose a realistic risk of injury, and (2) the gym disregards any [reasonable] safety concerns you report to the gym. In this regard, [gym's] gross negligence might suffice insofar as it touches on the covenant of fair dealing that is presumed in contract law. You may want to discuss with the gym your concern about the barbell/rack issue. However, it would fall short of entitlement-to-breach if you readily know --or should have known-- that maneuvering with the barbell(s) off the ground is hazardous given the progress you have attained so far.
So you entered a contract that was a bad deal. The law says: tough People are legally allowed to make bad deals. The law will hold you to the bad deal you made. If it only worked for good deals, no one would ever use the law because you don’t want to break a good deal. Providing it has all the required elements of a contract, it will be enforceable. Put up with him or pay him out.
He may be entitled to (part) of the deposit or he may owe you more money When you and he agreed you both entered a legally binding contract - you are obliged to sell the vehicle to him, he is obliged to buy the vehicle from you. The deposit is merely the first instalment of the payment for the vehicle with the balance being due on delivery. They are not refundable by default. He now wants to repudiate the contract and you have several options: you can refuse his repudiation and require him to complete the contract within a reasonable time. He probably won’t do this so when he doesn’t we move on to one of the other options. In essence, this is simply a warning shot that if he doesn’t complete the contract you will move on to item 2. you can accept the repudiation and sue for damages, these would include your lost rent, pro-rata of registration, insurance etc. from the time you would have sold to the time you do sell, any additional advertising, any difference in the price you ultimately get if it is lower than his offer etc. you can accept the repudiation in return for keeping the deposit in lieu of the actual damages. This in makes the deposit a liquidated damages amount and it must follow all the same rules, basically it must be a genuine pre-estimate of the damage you would suffer and not be so high that it amounts to a penalty. You can accept the repudiation and, as a gesture of goodwill, return some or all of the deposit.
My friend should have taken his property with him, but presumably the host can't just keep it, especially after reaching out to them? Correct. However, the host does not have to do anything to facilitate its return i.e. they don’t have to post it to you. So long as they keep it for your friend to collect and don’t appropriate it for their own use, they are not breaking the law. If they do appropriate it, that is called theft or its tort equivalent, conversion. As my contract was with Airbnb and the host works from them, is there any responsibility on their part, e.g. Could I hypothetically open a small claims case against them? Or would any small claims case be directly against the host themselves? This is not true. You and the host each have a contract with Airbnb for the use of the platform. The contract for the accommodation is between you two and doesn’t involve Airbnb at all. In any event, there is no contractural issue here.
I think the law there is quite clear - you have 14 days to return the goods for a full refund, except for digital content, which you can't return once you started downloading it. That's what it says. The arguments that you try to give were quite obvious to the law makers. I think you can assume they were aware that "digital content does not have a physical form". Now if you purchased, but haven't downloaded or started downloading yet, then obviously you can get your money back. You came up with some theory that this is a "visual vanity item". You can't see it unless you download it. Once you download it, that's it. If you don't download it, you can return it. Let me repeat this: Your fancy analogies mean nothing. There are in the EU laws about being allowed to return goods for a refund. There's the general rule for buying in a store (no right other what the store offers voluntarily), online purchases (some days to return), and online purchases of digital goods (no return once you started downloading). That's the law. Your attempts at redefining the situation are totally pointless. The law says what it says. What you try to redefine doesn't mean one thing. The law clearly distinguishes several situations, and analogies don't count. What happens counts. You bought from a digital item from an online store that needs to be downloaded. And as soon as you start downloading, there is your right to return it gone. And your reasons for wanting to return the goods are completely irrelevant. You don't need any reasons, and having reasons doesn't help you.
In the case of McKee v. Isle of Capri Casinos, we can tell because that case has been legally decided. As the court says, there was a contract and "the patron was not entitled to the bonus under those rules", and plaintiff "failed to prove the necessary elements of either promissory or equitable estoppel". They did not "represent to her that a bonus would be available if she played the game", and did not "promise to pay the $41 million after the notice was displayed". The (very complex) rules of the game are easily available on the machine, and there is a prominent disclaimer that "MALFUNCTION VOIDS ALL PAYS AND PLAYS". Under the rules, the winning configuration stated that she was entitled to $1.85. The problem was that it also announced "Bonus Award - $41797550.16". This was due to an inexplicable software error which in communicating with the central computer awarded a "legacy bonus", which is no part of the game in question. The maximum legacy bonus is $99999.99; the manufacturer knows of the possibility of this kind of error and has implemented a fix that is thought to eliminate the problem. The first point then is that the casino didn't just claim there was a malfunction, they proved that there was one. Second, the terms of the contract hold: she was entitled to $1.85, and the extraneous message was not part of the contract. That is, she did not actually win the large payout, the malfunction was in saying that she received a bonus. If a patron could likewise prove that they had actually won but the machine malfunctioned to represent the situation as a loss, they would of course be entitled to the appropriate winnings. The problem simply resides in the difficulty of a patron proving that.