Contract: Misrepresentation and Economic Duress

What Contract: Misrepresentation and Economic Duress covers

Contract: Misrepresentation and Economic Duress is examined in Components 2 and 3, if contract is one of the three areas you sit. It covers what counts as an actionable misrepresentation, statements of opinion, intention and expertise, silence, half-truths and changing circumstances, inducement and reliance, fraudulent misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation, innocent misrepresentation and remedies under the Act, rescission and the bars to rescission and economic duress.

The 9 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• What counts as an actionable misrepresentationActionable misrepresentation and burden of proof in a misrepresentation claim.Open →
• Statements of opinion, intention and expertiseWhen an opinion becomes a statement of fact, from Bisset v Wilkinson to Smith v Land and House Property and Esso v Mardon, and why the law is stricter with a party who has the expertise the other lacks.Open →
• Silence, half-truths and changing circumstancesThe general rule that silence says nothing actionable, and the four situations that escape it — half-truths, statements that become false, contracts of utmost good faith, and fiduciary relationships.Open →
• Inducement and relianceWhy a false statement is only actionable if it drew the other party in, what happens where the claimant investigated for themselves or never knew of the statement, and who has to prove what.Open →
• Fraudulent misrepresentationDerry v Peek and the dishonest state of mind it requires, the tort of deceit, how damages for deceit are measured after Smith New Court, and why claimants often plead the 1967 Act instead.Open →
• Negligent misrepresentationSection 2(1) of the Misrepresentation Act 1967 and the fiction of fraud, the reversed burden of proof, the criticism of Royscot Trust v Rogerson, and the Hedley Byrne route that runs alongside it.Open →
• Innocent misrepresentation and remedies under the ActRescission as the primary remedy, the section 2(2) discretion to award damages instead, what sections 1 and 3 of the 1967 Act do, and why the classification of a misrepresentation still decides what a claimant gets.Open →
• Rescission and the bars to rescissionBar of impossibility of restitution and relationship between rescission and damages.Open →
• Economic duressDuress in contract law, duress to the person and economic duress.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Contract: Misrepresentation and Economic Duress further

The same content, four other ways.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Define an actionable misrepresentation.

   Model answer

   An actionable misrepresentation is an untrue statement of fact or law made by one party to the other. The statement must have induced the other party to enter the contract.

2. 2

   What is the effect of an actionable misrepresentation on the contract?

   Model answer

   An actionable misrepresentation makes the contract voidable rather than void. The misled party may choose to rescind or to affirm the agreement.

3. 3

   Must a misrepresentation be made by the other contracting party?

   Model answer

   A misrepresentation must generally be made by the other party or by that party's agent. A false statement by a stranger gives no remedy against the other contracting party.

4. 4

   Can conduct alone amount to a misrepresentation?

   Model answer

   Conduct can amount to a misrepresentation where it conveys a false impression. Concealing a defect by physical means is treated as a positive false statement.

5. 5

   Why must the statement be unambiguous?

   Model answer

   A statement capable of two meanings may not be a misrepresentation at all. The claimant must show the sense in which the words were understood was false.

6. 6

   Is a statement about the future a misrepresentation?

   Model answer

   A promise about future conduct is not a statement of existing fact. Breach of such a promise gives a remedy only if the promise became a term.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Contract: Misrepresentation and Economic Duress revision questions

What does Contract: Misrepresentation and Economic Duress cover in Eduqas A-Level Law?

9 subtopics: what counts as an actionable misrepresentation, statements of opinion, intention and expertise, silence, half-truths and changing circumstances, inducement and reliance, fraudulent misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation, innocent misrepresentation and remedies under the act, rescission and the bars to rescission and economic duress. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Contract: Misrepresentation and Economic Duress organised?

By the Eduqas A150QS specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.