Contract Law Case Study

When discussing the concept of contract law, there exist two bodies of legal rules that may apply to the contract. These bodies are the common law of contracts and Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code or the UCC. The common law of contracts is court made and is constantly changing, but the UCC is required in every state within the U.S.A. It is important to know which one to use and when, as well as what the differences between them are.

The UCC was created with the purpose of bringing uniformity to the States in regards to commercial transactions. These regulations apply to commercial contracts that deal with the sale of goods. It does not apply to private and nonprofessional sales, property, services, or intangible goods. If the code

Common law dictates that the acceptance must be a mirror image of the offer, regardless of what the difference may be. The Pride v Lewis case is an example of the mirror image rule in action. Pride owned a house which they listed for sale but found a renter in the meantime. Lewis made an offer on the house with a closing date of May 15th, and the Prides accepted but changed the closing date to June 1st and proceeded to evict their tenant and take the house off the market. When the Lewises never showed up to closing, the Prides relisted the house but were never able to find another tenant and ended up selling the house for $15,000 less than the Lewis’s had offered. The Prides sued the Lewises for breach of contract but lost due to the mirror image rule. The different closing date in the acceptance effectively rejected the Lewises offer and no contract was formed. The UCC is not as stringent on the acceptance, it utilizes a “battle of forms” as dictated in section 2-207 which checks for a substantive difference between the offer and the acceptance, such as price, goods ordered, delivery date, and other similar matters. It could also allow a term from the acceptance to be considered a valid part of the contract unless the offer expressly limited acceptance, the new terms would substantively alter the offer with differences such as price, or the offeror objects to the new terms within a reasonable time