Part B (worth 10 marks)
Gordon advertised his car for sale. Mary inspected the car and declared her desire to purchase it. Gordon was happy with that but when she said she wanted to take it now but would pay him next week, Gordon explained he could not let her have the car until she provided the money. Mary’s response was as follows: “Oh, but I am Joan Bennett, the new Lord Mayor for Melbourne. Don’t you recognise me?” Gordon knew there had been discussion in the paper of the election of a woman Mayor (for the first time) but remembered no details, including the person’s name. He felt so foolish that he let her take the car. When he did not hear from Mary, she used the phone number she gave him, only to find it did not exist. He also discovers (of course) that Mary is not Joan Bennett.
Gordon found the car when looking at the classified advertisements section of the newspaper but when he contacted the seller, Cheng, Cheng refused to give it back because he had paid cash for it.
Required:
Who has a better claim to the car, Cheng or Gordon? Give reasons for your answer. (10 mark)
Part B (worth 10 marks) Gordon advertised his car for sale. Mary inspected the car and declared her desire to purchase it. Gordon was happy with that but when she said she wanted to take it now but would pay him next week, Gordon explained he could not let her have the car until she provided the money. Mary’s response was as follows: “Oh, but I am Joan Bennett, the new Lord Mayor for Melbourne. Don’t you recognise me?” Gordon knew there had been discussion in the paper of the election of a woman Mayor (for the first time) but remembered no details, including the person’s name. He felt so foolish that he let her take the car. When he did not hear from Mary, she used the phone number she gave him, only to find it did not exist. He also discovers (of course) that Mary is not Joan Bennett. Gordon found the car when looking at the classified advertisements section of the newspaper but when he contacted the seller, Cheng, Cheng refused to give it back because he had paid cash for it. Required: Who has a better claim to the car, Cheng or Gordon? Give reasons for your answer. (10 mark) IRAC The acronym IRAC is a methodology for legal analysis. It consists of four steps which are followed by lawyerswhen they analyse a legal problem. The four steps are: (i) Issue; (ii) Rule; (iii) Application; and (iv) Conclusion. Issue The first step is to work out what legal issues are presented in the case. You might start by asking yourself what has happened between the parties that might result in some issue before the court. This will help you to decide what area of the law is relevant. A good way to work out the issues is to ask questions. For instance, ask yourself ‘what question(s) is/are the court faced with? What must the court answer in order to decide the case?’ When you write about the issue in your assignment, it should be in the form of a question such as ‘Did the plaintiff commit a material misrepresentation?’ Clarifying the issues upfront is the best way to plan your answer and to stop yourself from going off track. Rule The next step is to find the specific rules that apply to the situation that you have identified in step 1.These rules would usually come from a statute or regulation or from a case decision that can be used as a precedent. As part of this step, you need to state the rule and the source of the rule. Be clear and specific. Where the rule is from statute, you need to identify the section number and the proper name of the statute. An example is s19 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). Where the rule is from a case, you need to provide the proper citation for the case, for example, Tower Cabinet Co Ltd v Ingram [1949] 1 All ER 1033. Referring to a case in this way is called ‘citing’ the case. When you are first learning to do this, have a look at how cases are referred to in the text book. Application At this step, you will be applying the rules that you have identified to the specific facts of the case. Sometimes, it will be clear that the rule applies to the facts. At other times, there will be some doubt as to whether the rule would apply, because the facts in the question are very different in important ways from the facts of an earlier case. The best tip for doing this step well is to always explain your thinking. When students begin to study law for the first time, they sometimes have difficulty trying to decide which facts are relevant and which are not. Have a look at the statute and case law in the area of law that you are trying to apply. Are there any similarities with how that statute or judge-made rule has been applied before? What were the facts that were relevant to that earlier case? In other words, what facts made the judge decide the case in a particular way or meant that the statute could be applied? Conclusion The conclusion is the answer to the issue. You are not a judge in a court of law so we do not expect you to tell us exactly what the court would decide. You should express the conclusion is terms of the likelihood of a particular outcome. For instance, ‘it is likely that the defendant will be found to have breached the contract’. As part of this step, you should also deal with the likely consequences of the conclusion. For instance, ‘it is likely that the court will order the defendant to pay damages to the plaintiff because of the breach of contract’. Even if you come to a different conclusion from what the marker of an assignment or exam question was expecting, provided you have followed each step and explained what you are doing, the marker can award you marks that match your effort.