Reading
Chapter 1 (revisit) and Chapter 2 (full). Restatement (Second) § 1, § 2, § 3.
Time budget
- Floor
- ~40 min — R2d § 1 + Pappas. The doctrine the next class assumes you have covered.
- Target
- ~75 min — Floor + R2d § 2 + synthesis.
- Ceiling
- ~110 min — Target + Practice problems + open-discussion on the synthesis question.
By the end of this class, you can
- Apply R2d § 2 to a gratuitous family promise and decide whether the speaker manifested intent to be bound.
- Distinguish bilateral from unilateral contracts on a fact pattern and explain how the classification changes when revocation becomes effective.
- Identify, on a hypothetical, whether expectation, reliance, or restitution damages best fit the promisee's injury.
This class fixes the vocabulary of the course. By the end of the hour you should be able to say which of these the law cares about, and why, in a sentence or two:
- A statement of present intention to act in the future
- A promise
- An offer
- An agreement
- A bargain
- A contract
Each one is a different thing. The casebook draws the lines; we walk through them in order. Pappas v. Bever sits at the boundary between the first and second: the doctor’s “I intend to subscribe” is the canonical example of a statement that sounds promissory but is not a promise.
Doctrinal goals
- R2d § 1. A contract is a promise or set of promises for the breach of which the law gives a remedy.
- R2d § 2. A promise is a manifestation of intention to act or refrain from acting in a specified way.
- R2d § 3. Agreement is manifestation of mutual assent; bargain is an agreement to exchange.
- R2d § 17. Formation requires bargain + mutual assent + consideration (subject to exceptions we will study later in Module III).
Remedy preview
We close with a thirty-second preview of remedies: damages (default), specific performance (limited), rescission (when assent fails). The point is to seed the question Hadley will eventually answer in April, not to teach it.
Slide deck
Spacebar / arrow keys to advance. Press F for fullscreen. Click Print / PDF for handouts. PPTX export is professor-only.
Rules
Cases
Cold call
Prepare to be called on: Hawkins v. McGee (continued from Class 1)
K exercises
Notes
Lead-in to formation. The aim is to put the basic vocabulary (promise, agreement, bargain) on stable ground before we attempt to define mutual assent next week.