Can a company change its contract only for a specific person? If a rich man is doing business with a company and they want him to sign a contract, can they present him with a different contract than the one they give to other customers to try and take advantage of him? (And this contract they presented him contains unacceptable conditions.) I am asking because some contract papers are very long and would take hours to read. And if a contract contains some ridiculously unacceptable conditions, then are the chances of the person who signed the contract winning in the court high?
Excluding "ridiculously unacceptable conditions", it is legal to have "non-uniform" contract terms (where a company treats different classes of individuals differently), provided that the basis for distinction is not statutorily prohibited (race, religion, age, sex... depending on jurisdiction). There is a extremely slim chance that apparently legal income-discrimination can be a proxy for another form of illegal discrimination. However, "ridiculously unacceptable conditions" are unlikely to be found to be enforceable, regardless of any demographic properties associated with the condition. E.g. a clause requiring the surrender of a first-born female child would be unenforceable as "unconscionable". The specific circumstances surrounding such a finding by the court can't easily be summarized, since it relies heavily on prior case law, statutes, and legislative declarations. The underlying premise behind using the doctrine of unconsionability in such a case is that the clause in question is not something that a reasonable person would agree to, but they have no power to disagree. In the US, the case Williams v. Walker-Thomas Furniture is the leading case on this view. The clause in question was about a payment plan for furniture and the condition that no furniture could be paid off until all of it was. The consequence of the clause was that all of the furniture could be repossessed if any payment was missed, regardless of how much had already been paid. Various factors went into the court's ruling (that the condition was unenforceable), such as "absence of meaningful choice", "terms which are unreasonably favorable to the other party", :gross inequality of bargaining power". In the circumstance that you allude to, it is not obvious that the courts would follow Williams in making their ruling – it would depend on the extent to which one could reasonable conclude that the customer understood and freely accepted the term. There are upper limits on what a court can enforce, so a contract requiring a party to commit suicide would be utterly unenforceable (in most countries), and a contract requiring a party to break the law would be likewise.
If an offer is accepted, you have a contract Oral contracts are binding for most transactions. See What is a contract and what is required for them to be valid? However, from the circumstances, it’s not clear that there was an offer subject to acceptance. Had the wages been agreed? The hours of work? The annual leave? The sick leave? If these were undetermined then there is no contract.
Any written communication is generally admissible Subject to all the normal rules for admissibility of course. For texts between you and a third party the major issue that springs to mind is relevance. As in, how are they relevant to the dispute between you and this man? If they are not, your lawyer should have objected to them on this basis, however, its too late now. I'm curious as to how he obtained these and whether it was done legally or not. Illegality will not affect their admissibility as the exclusionary rule doesn't apply to civil matters, however, it does speak to the gentleman's character.
If the company makes a contract, and as a result of that contract it owes more money than it has, then the company goes bankrupt and the owners and directors can walk away from it. This covers the owners/directors in cases of ordinary business contracts. However if an employee (including an owner or director) does something sufficiently harmful then under the law of torts they can be personally liable as well as the company. Examples are negligence and fraud; if you build someone's new roof while acting as an employee and the roof leaks then its likely to be the company on the hook for damages. However if you misrepresented your qualifications or acted negligently then you might well be personally liable. This is all very general. Details are going to be specific to your jurisdiction. So the answer is that having a company is certainly better than making every contract in your own name, but its not complete cover. You can probably get insurance if this is a concern, but its likely to be expensive.
In the US, in general anyone can claim anything. Others are free to believe or disbelieve the claim. In theory, a person might base their decision to do business with Hilton partly on this particular claim (this is why some software companies start presentations about their new features with a Safe Harbor statement letting the audience know not to base purchasing decisions on unreleased features), and in that case they could argue that Hilton's claim damaged them by causing them to enter into a contract under false pretenses. I doubt such a case would be meritorious, but there could be some contrived situation where the point of whether Hilton owned the hotel when it invented the brownie was actually important.
Neither The contract is completed when each party has totally fulfilled its obligations under the contract. In this case, it is when the purchaser has consumed or otherwise dealt with the banana to their satisfaction. The vendor has ongoing obligations under the contract until this happens. For example, obligations that the banana is of merchantable quality and fit for purpose. If the purchaser peels the banana and discovers that it is "off" or eats the banana and develops food poisoning then the vendor still has obligations and can be sued under the contract. Yes, I realize that no one is going to sue anyone over a rotten banana but let's assume that "banana" is code for 54km of motorway construction and £1 is actually £1 billion. When is the contract formed? This is not a trivial determination and there are literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of lawsuits that have turned on this exact question. Once the contract is formed its binding on both parties; until then, either can walk away (subject to estoppel) The traditional analysis involves offer and acceptance. In your banana scenario, the shop displaying "Banana's: 50p/each" (it's a fruit shop - they always have unnecessary apostrophes) is not an offer - it is an invitation to treat. An offer is made by Ben placing the banana on the counter and proffering the £1, it is accepted by Sam taking the £1. At this point, the sale is binding on both parties. Ben has fulfilled all his obligations under the contract, Sam still has some. In addition to those discussed above, he owes Ben 50p. Strictly speaking, this is not an obligation under the contract but a debt due and payable. Consumer protection law The proceeding is a strict contract law interpretation - many jurisdictions have consumer protection legislation (and food safety laws for bananas) that impose additional protections and may change the contract law position.
Generally speaking, you signature and delivery of the lease to the landlord makes it possible for the landlord to enforce. Particularly when, as in the question, the landlord presented the lease to you as an &quot;offer&quot; which you accepted without modification, it is probably binding upon the landlord even if the landlord does not sign it or return a copy with the landlord's signature. In jurisdictions that have a statute of frauds, your part performance by sending checks in the lease period consistent with the lease, and the landlord's part performance by continuing to allow you to occupy the premises without objection, would probably make the statute of frauds (which generally requires a signed writing by the party against whom a lease is enforced) to be inapplicable. On the other hand, if you materially changed a version provided by the landlord, there is a real question over whether there has been an offer and acceptance, or a meeting of the minds, agreeing to the new lease. Materially here meaning changes that are more than updating your contact details and go to the heart of the lease contract.
In my experience, varying jurisdictions can and do differ as to the myriad ways these disputes are resolved. Contract law is one area where the judge has a lot of discretion. This is definitely true in state courts, even from judge to judge, and can even be true in the federal level-The 9th Circuit has some wildly different appellate decisions when compared to the 1st Circuit, and so on. I say this not to be argumentative, but to highlight the importance of careful and concise drafting that fully explicates the bargained for exchange, as there can be a vast amount of judicial subjectivity that goes into determining which rules pertain to certain situations. "Conflicting or competing clause" cases are now some of the most commonly litigated contract disputes. This is largely because the last 20 years has seen a huge influx of people "drafting" (more like piecing together) contracts without benefit of qualified counsel. This is particularly true because lay people do not generally create a specific insturment like an attorney would - from scratch, with definitions and terms specific to the transaction. Rather, they go online and find "form" or model contracts that they feel are close enough (which are almost always missing key components), and then they type in their own terms, or even write them in. Because this is so common, most jurisdictions follow the rule that hand written terms supersede pre-printed terms; likewise, type written terms will take precedence over pre-printed terms. Specific terms also carry more weight than general terms. Specific terms will usually be given precedence over general terms, as these are seen as creating a specific exception to the general terms. For example, if Clause A in your scenario said: Written notice must be provided at least five days in advance of (any) change... (leaving out "to price"), then clause B would prevail because it would be more specific than the more general term (A), which in my scene would pertain to any change whatsoever (this is assuming the whole of the agreement did not shed light on the issues more fully). In your hypothetical, these are both specific terms. In that case, the court would first examine the entire contract and all addendum, specs, plans, etc. when interpreting competing or conflicting clauses applying the fundamental principal that a contract should always be interpreted as a whole - not clause-by-clause - and not section-by-section. Contracts will often have numerous parts with portions incorporated specifically by reference, or numerous documents that may be integral to the transaction, If the parties agree to what constitutes the various parts of the contract (even if not incorporated) the entirety of the transactional documents may be considered by the trier of fact (and law). Once examined, if a proposed interpretation makes other portions of the global agreement meaningless, illogical or unenforceable, and another party's interpretation is in keeping with the document as a whole, that is the interpretation that will typically be adopted. Assuming this analysis doesn't work to resolve the issue, then the court would look to see if there is an order-of-precedence clause, which is a clause that lays out what parts of the contract / types of clauses take precedence over others (ex. written requirements take precendee over performance requirements, addendum hold less import than the signed agreement, schematics hold less import than addendum, and so on). Assuming this there is no order of precedence, the court will look first to see if the contract was negotiated back and forth, with terms being modified with each draft. If Yes, then the court will except extrinsic evidence (parole evidence) that goes to the intent of the parties bargained for exchange. If not, the contract term(s) will be construed against the drafter and in favor of the one who signed the others' instrument. So, as you can see, there is no clear answer to what seems to be a simple issue. This just goes to show: Lawyers seem expensive when you decide to hire them - Lawyers are expensive when you have to hire them, because you decided not to in the first place!