Contract law | Law homework help

Part B (7%) (word limits: up to 1,200 words for parts i-ii together)

James and Simon are cousins. James is the proprietor of shop A which sells musical instruments while Simon is a free-lance music teacher (Simon does not work for James). On one occasion, Simon visited shop A. When he saw James busy in promoting musical instruments to the customers, he (Simon) played some of the musical instruments in shop A to help James in the promotion. As a result, some customers were impressed with the qualities of the instruments and purchased them. Simon also took this opportunity to promote his own music classes as allowed by James. After the customers left shop A, James said to Simon, ‘to thank you for your help, let me buy the latest T-shirt of the Brazil national football team that you like for you.’ Simon happily thanked James in return. James, however, did not purchase the said T-shirt for Simon when they later quarreled with each other over some daily life matters.

Susan is a free-lance computer programmer and she is skillful in writing computer games. On one occasion, company B (a company which supplies computer game programmes) engaged her to write a computer game programme in consideration of a fixed fee to be paid to her at the end of the contract period and she signed an agreement for this. The agreement mentioned some basic ideas for her as to how to design the game, but she had to create her own detailed ideas in doing so. Later, Matthew, the proprietor of company B, told her that she would be paid a specified additional fee if many customers purchased the game that she designed. Susan happily agreed and she signed another agreement for this. Susan later completed writing the said programme by deadline and received the fee as stated in the first agreement. It turned out that many customers of company B purchased the said programme. However, she was not paid the additional fee as stated in the second agreement when Matthew learnt that she would write another programme (a completely different game) for a business rival of company B.

Analyse: –

(i) whether Simon is entitled to the T-shirt of the Brazil national football team from James, and,

(ii) whether company B has to pay the additional fee to Susan (under agency law principles Matthew represented company B in making the arrangement with her).