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Contract: Misrepresentation and Duress

Evaluating misrepresentation and duress

  • 3 things to know
  • A2 Units 3 and 4

Overview

Recall questions on the rule that silence is not a misrepresentation, the fact and opinion distinction, the deceit measure for careless statements, the narrowness of economic duress, and unconscionability.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Key term

State the case in favour of the approach taken in Royscot Trust v Rogerson (1991).

Evaluation

State the main criticism of the rule that silence cannot be a misrepresentation.

Evaluation

Assess the criticism that the distinction between fact and opinion is unworkable.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    State the main criticism of the rule that silence cannot be a misrepresentation.

    Model answer

    A party may stay silent knowing the other is contracting under a serious mistake about something only they can discover, which rewards concealment and sits badly with the idea that contracts should be honestly made.

  2. 2

    State the case for keeping the rule that there is no general duty of disclosure.

    Model answer

    A duty to volunteer information would be impossible to define, would destroy the value of a party's own research and investment in knowledge, and would make every negotiation the subject of later argument about what should have been said.

  3. 3

    Assess the criticism that the distinction between fact and opinion is unworkable.

    Model answer

    The line is hard to draw because most opinions carry implied assertions about the facts behind them, but the cases show a consistent approach based on who was in a position to know the truth, which gives the distinction practical content.

  4. 4

    Explain the objection to using the deceit measure of damages for a merely careless statement.

    Model answer

    Removing the remoteness limit is justified as a penalty for dishonesty, so applying it to a party who was careless but honest imposes a punishment out of proportion to the fault and blurs an important moral distinction.

  5. 5

    State the case in favour of the approach taken in Royscot Trust v Rogerson (1991).

    Model answer

    The subsection expressly makes the maker liable as though the statement had been made fraudulently, so the court gave effect to the words Parliament used, and the wide measure discourages careless statements made to secure a contract.

  6. 6

    Criticise the number of separate routes to a remedy for a false pre-contractual statement.

    Model answer

    A claimant may sue in deceit, in negligence at common law, under section 2(1) of the Misrepresentation Act 1967, or for breach of a term, and the overlapping tests and different measures of damages make the law needlessly complex and expensive to litigate.

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Law Making in Wales and the UK
Delegated Legislation
Statutory Interpretation
Judicial Precedent

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Roles v Nathan ( ).
196319411945

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AThe defendant owed the victim a duty of care and breached it.
BThe breach carried a reasonably foreseeable risk of death.
CThe breach caused the death.

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Assemble a full-mark answer from its marking points, in the order an examiner wants them.

Pecuniary loss is financial and measurable.
TrueFalse

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