Contract basics
Essential elements
Famous Contract Cases
Know Your Legislation
Consumer Rights
100
This is an agreement recognised and enforceable by law.
Contract
100
This is something of legal value exchanged for a promise.
Consideration
100
This famous case involved a woman who used a smoke ball product but still caught influenza.
Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co (1893)
100
This Commonwealth Act contains the Australian Consumer Law.
Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth)
100
These automatic legal protections apply to goods and services purchased by consumers.
Consumer guarantees
200
These two elements combine to form an agreement.
Offer and acceptance
200
This element requires parties to intend their agreement to have legal consequences.
Intention to create legal relations
200
This case established that signing a contractual document generally binds a person to its terms, even if they did not read them.
Toll v Alphapharm (2004)
200
The Australian Consumer Law is contained in this Schedule of the Act.
Schedule 2
200
Goods must be safe, durable and free from defects under this guarantee.
Acceptable quality
300
This is an invitation for another person to make an offer, rather than a binding offer itself.
Invitation to treat
300
This element concerns a person's legal ability to enter a binding agreement.
Capacity
300
This case involved a property transaction where one party was seriously affected by alcohol.
Blomley v Ryan (1956)
300
This section of the ACL prohibits misleading or deceptive conduct.
Section 18
300
This guarantee requires goods to match the description used to sell them.
Supply by description (s 56)
400
This occurs when a person responds to an offer by changing its original terms.
Counter-offer
400
Duress, undue influence and misleading statements may undermine this essential element.
Genuine consent
400
This case considered whether an agreement expressed as "subject to contract" was immediately binding.
Masters v Cameron (1954)
400
This section guarantees that goods must be of acceptable quality.
Section 54
400
This ACCC enforcement tool involves gathering evidence about possible breaches of consumer law.
Investigation
500
This legal requirement means the essential obligations of an agreement must be sufficiently clear and complete.
Certainty and completeness
500
This type of consideration is generally invalid because the act occurred before the promise was made.
Past consideration
500
This High Court case involved a wool subsidy and demonstrated that reliance on a statement alone does not establish consideration.
Australian Woollen Mills v Commonwealth (1954)
500
Under section 87B of the Competition and Consumer Act, the ACCC can accept this type of enforceable commitment from a business.
Court-enforceable undertaking
500
True or false: A retailer can remove consumer guarantee rights by displaying a "No Refunds" sign.
False
600
This country has more pyramids than Egypt.
Sudan
600
This is the only letter that does not appear in the name of any US state.
Q
600
This famous artist painted The Persistence of Memory, featuring melting clocks.
Salvador Dalí
600
This mathematical number is approximately 1.618 and is often associated with patterns in nature and art.
The golden ratio
600
In 1986, this nuclear power plant in present-day Ukraine was the site of a catastrophic disaster.
Chernobyl