What is the point of requiring consideration in a contract? If a contract where Bob gives Alice a peppercorn and she gives him an airplane will be enforced by a court if one of them tries to back out, what's the point of not enforcing a contract where Alice promises Bob the plane with no consideration from Bob?
Lon Fuller, in a classic article titled &quot;Consideration and Form&quot; posited three purposes of consideration: an evidentiary function, a cautionary function, and a channelling function. He quotes from Austin to say, consideration can be &quot;evidence of the existence and purport of the contract, in case of controversy&quot;. The requirement for consideration can also just slow down the transaction, give the party time to consider their actions more carefully before committing to obligations. Other formal requirements can have a similar effect (requirement for a contract to be in writing, in certain domains, for example). He argues that the requirement for consideration provides a useful &quot;channelling&quot; function, in that it assists in carving out as a class those promises which people will be held to be bound to. Most of the article is devoted to explaining the ways in which this channelling function produces a worthwhile categorization. As for your specific question about peppercorn or &quot;nominal&quot; consideration, Fuller writes: The proper ground for upholding these decisions would seem to be that the desiderata underlying the use of formalities are here satisfied by the fact that the parties have taken the trouble to cast their transaction in the form of an exchange. The promise supported by nominal consideration then becomes enforceable for reasons similar to those which justify the enforcement of the promise under seal. In your example though, I actually don't see the contract issue. You ask, &quot;what's the point of not enforcing a contract where Alice gives Bob the plane with no consideration from Bob?&quot; But Alice can absolutely choose to gift an airplane to Bob. For a gift, there merely needs to be transfer, donative intent, and acceptance. That does not involve a contract law issue. The transfer would be complete and there would be no further obligation either side could be in breach of. If you rephrase your question to &quot;what's the point of not enforcing a contract where Alice promises to give Bob the plane with no consideration from Bob?&quot; then the contract issue appears: does Alice now have an obligation to give Bob the airplane or otherwise be in breach?
In normal commercial situations there is the principle of freedom of contract where parties are free to contract with whom they choose. As a result of this principle, they are also free to not choose to contract with whom they choose (i.e. refuse to serve someone). There are limits, such as if it could be argued that by doing so contravenes other laws, such as those against discrimination on the basis of race, age or gender for example. When a public entity is involved, it is a branch of government and is governed by the rules that define the relationship between the individual and the state - the constitution, so principles of constitutional law apply. Decisions made by public bodies can therefore be subject to judicial review, where an affected party or someone with sufficient standing can take the matter to court to be reviewed by a judge.
In general, "a signed piece of paper" is not "a contract". It may be a record of a contract, but the contract itself is the meeting of minds where an agreement is reached and doesn't depend on the existence of the piece of paper. (Depending on the jurisdiction, some sorts of contract are required to be in writing, but this doesn't usually apply to employment contracts; it's usually contracts involving land.) What is far more worrying to me is that you don't know how much they are going to pay you. That suggests there hasn't been a meeting of minds, and there is no contract. (It might be that "the going rate" is good enough to form a contract - to determine that would require advice from a local lawyer.) I suggest you don't write up a formal agreement, but nag your boss to decide how much they are actually going to pay you.
Should I ask for a contract, when asking for the money? The proper time to define or formalize a contract is not when asking for the money, but when agreeing what tasks are expected from you and how much you will charge therefor. That way both parties will be clear on what is expected from each other. And if a dispute is brought to court, the fact-finder will have an objective document from which to identify who breached the contract. It is always recommendable that the contract be self-contained, and that relevant interactions between the parties be in writing or memorialized in some way that leaves no room for unverifiable allegations of the type &quot;I said, he said&quot;.
Offer and Acceptance What you have been presented with is an offer; by signing it unamended you accept the other party's offer and create a legally binding contract. If you amend it and sign it you have made a counter-offer that is now open for the other party to accept. There is no contract until they do. Two points to remember: Making a counter-offer ends the original offer: it is no longer open to you to accept the original offer. Offers may be accepted by actions: if you make a (counter-)offer and the other party acts like they have accepted it (e.g. by doing the things the contract would require of them) then it is likely that the offer has been accepted and a contract formed. Many disputes lie along this path - see battle of the forms. Signatures There is no need for an offer, an acceptance or a contract to be signed by anyone. There is not even a need for them to be written down. If you go into the supermarket and put their goods on the cashier's counter, you have made an offer to buy those goods at the price the supermarket has advertised. The supermarket accepts your offer by scanning the groceries and putting them in a bag. The contract is completed when you hand over your money.
One of the principles of contract law is that the offer and acceptance are evaluated based on the objectively ascertainable intentions as judged by a reasonable person. On the facts that you have provided - even if your friend claims that they filled it out wrong, there is no reason for someone to objectively think so, particularly given the fact that they went to the trouble of writing the information in. However, this will depend on what kind of legally binding document this is. If it is, in fact, a contract, then the employer must accept it before it becomes legally binding, and they must actually communicate this acceptance to your friend (the offeror). If this is a policy document, then it is only legally binding if another contract has said that it is legally binding - generally, (smart) employers will include a clause in their employment contract stating that you are to adhere to policies but that those policies do not form part of the contract. If that is the case, then your friend is legally bound by the terms of the policy and will breach their employment contract if they do not adhere to this policy. This is unlikely to be an issue of contract law in and of itself - your friend cannot unilaterally bind their employer to terms as he sees fit. More information - including the nature of the document and other agreements that were made - would be required to provide more useful information (and that's what you would give to a lawyer).
An obvious example would be a contract that gives possession of something to someone else. It's normally legal to use some reasonable amount of force to protect or prevent trespasses against property you own, but if you give possession of that property to someone else you can lose that right. For example, you can use force remove a guest who refuses to leave real property you own, but can't use force to remove a tenant even if they broke the terms of your contract. In most jurisdictions you'd need to get a court order and have the police use force if necessary remove the tenant.
Contracts are a relationship between two or more people Just as it is meaningless to speak of marrying yourself, it is equally meaningless to speak of a contract with yourself. Even if you were to draft such a thing, you would not have standing to sue because you can’t sue yourself. Your example probably isn’t a “one person contract” It’s a contract between the car owner (person 1) and the car yard (person 2) - probably a corporation. The fact that person 1 is representing both parties to the contract doesn’t make it a “one person contract”. There are potential conflicts of interest with this but they are not necessarily ones that can’t be overcome. However, if the car owner runs a business as a car dealer as a sole trader, then, no, they cannot make this kind of contract.