That is a question posed by Kris Nelson on his blog, in propria persona. As usual, the answer is that “it depends”. I’ve already had a look at the issue from the perspective of potential criminal or civil liability if a user’s wifi is shared by a third party; and Daithí has taken the discussion several steps further. Now, Kris adds an additional consideration, directing the analysis to the terms of any contract between the ISP and the customer: …
Universities are increasingly providing aid and advice to lecturers in the practicalities of teaching and lecturing. The Centre for Academic Practice and Student Learning (CAPSL) in Trinity College Dublin (where I work) is a local example of an increasingly prevalent phenomenon, of which the Higher Education Academy (HEA) in the UK and the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) are exemplars. The HEA even maintains excellent resources for law teachers at the UK Centre for Legal Education (UKCLE). But missing from all of this is a simple, yet comprehensive, primer for the novice law teacher. Now, via Law School Innovation, I learn about Howard Katz and Kevin O’Neill “Strategies and Techniques of Law School Teaching: A Primer for New Teachers”, now available on SSRN. The abstract:
…Much has been written about law school teaching. In our view, the contributions of Kent Syverud, Susan Becker, and Douglas Whaley are especially valuable. Why, then, did we bother to write this article? Because most articles focus narrowly on specific teaching techniques or on particular law school courses. Only a few offer general advice to the new teacher. No article, to our knowledge, has ever furnished detailed and comprehensive advice on how to teach a law school course – from choosing a book and designing a syllabus to orchestrating the classroom experience to creating and grading the final exam.
I’ve just read the judgment of Smyth J in Finnegan v J&E Davy [2007] IEHC 18 (26 January 2007). A must read for contract students everywhere, for what it says about duress (“hobson’s choice”), exercising contractual discretion especially in awarding bonuses, and restraint of trade.
Update (21 May 2007): I’ve also just read the judgment of Finlay Geoghegan J in Boliden Tara Mines Limited v Cosgrove & Ors [2007] IEHC 60 (09 March 2007). It too is interesting, in part for what it says (albeit in the context of a pension deed rather than a contract) about construction of documents (applying the leading UK case, which has been approved by the Supreme Court in a case not referred to here, though an earlier decision is), the remedy of rectification, and setting aside for (unilateral) mistake.
Update (25 May 2007): I’ve also read the interesting decision of O’Neill J in Flynn v Dermot Kelly Limited & Anor [2007] IEHC 103 (16 March 2007) on the interplay between, on the one hand, the definitions of “consumer”, “consumer-hire agreement”, and “hirer” in section 2 of the Consumer Credit Act, 1995 (also here), and the implied conditions as to quality and fitness of motor vehicles contained in section 13 of the Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act, 1980 (also here; restated here (pdf)).…
From Jeremy Telman on ContractsProf Blog, a limerick on Taylor v Caldwell (1863) 3 B & S 826, 122 ER 309, [1863] EWHC QB J1 (6 May 1863) (see wikipedia), the decision of Blackburn J which is now regarded as the foundation case of the modern law of frustration of contracts:
This case may be so well known as to need no introduction, but if people are in the market for visual aids, at left are public domain images of the Surrey Music Hall and Gardens, the former of which was the music hall that burnt down in Taylor v. Caldwell.
Since neither this nor the coronation cases are included in the casebook that I use, and since I am usually way behind by the time I get to this subject matter, this is a portion of the course that I teach entirely through Limericks.
Taylor v. Caldwell
- Taylor rented a hall like the Met’s
For the purpose of concerts and fetes
When fire the hall downed,
The corut wisely found
A way to excuse Taylor’s debts.[Jeremy Telman]
An earlier entry in ContractsProf Blog also has links to more on the Royal Surrey Gardens and Surrey Music Hall here (wikipedia) and here, including the image of the interior (left) (see here for images of what’s there now).…
I can’t let this pass. From a post by Nate Oman on Concurring Opinions:
…Apparently Ben Davis of the University of Toledo law school really gets into the facts of Hadley v. Baxendale, acting out the various parts for his students. (Who, of course, have taped his performance and posted it to Google Videos.) For the non-contracts geeks in the audience, Hadley is a famous case on the recoverability of consequential damages for breach of contract. The facts had to do with late delivery of a replacement mill shaft, and the mill owner’s claim for lost profits. Here is professor Davis, complete with mill shaft…
All families are happy in the same fashion,
and each family is unhappy in its own way.Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)
in Anna Karenina (1875-1877)
Banks lend money; but they are averse to the risks of this lending, so they usually require security for the money they lend. One form of security is to get another, creditworthy, person to agree to pay the loan if the borrower fails to do so. This arrangement is called a suretyship, and the person who undertakes to pay if the borrower does not is called a surety.
Do sureties need protection from the borrowers or lenders? For example, if a husband and wife have interests in the family home, and the wife agrees to secure a loan to her husband against her interest in the family home, does a vulnerable wife need protection either from an overbearing husband or an unscrupulous bank here? …
A payment made on a basis which fails can be recovered. So, if I pay for cigarettes, and the price includes an amount for a tax which is subsequently found unconstitutional, the basis for that excess amount has failed, and I can recover the tax amount that wasn’t due (see Roxborough v Rothmans of Pall Mall Australia Limited (2001) 208 CLR 516; [2001] HCA 68 (6 December 2001)). It follows that if I book to travel with an airline, and pay their fee plus taxes and charges, but if I then don’t travel, so that the charges are not incurred and the taxes are not due, the basis for those taxes and charges has failed, and I ought to be able to recover them. If the contract between me and the airline contains clauses making them irrecoverable, (or, what amounts to the same thing, imposing disproportionately high administration fees) such clauses are almost certainly unenforceable (on foot of the European Communities (Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts) Regulations, 1995 (S.I. No. 27 of 1995), the English equivalent of which have recently been applied by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) against an airline’s terms and conditions).
These musings are prompted by the following story in the Price Watch column in today’s Irish Times (sub req’d):
…No guaranteed refund if you don’t take your Ryanair flight
In the week that the EU Commission adopts a Consumer Policy Strategy for 2007-2013 (largely welcomed (pdf) by the European Consumers’ Organisation (BEUC)), and the Consumer Protection Bill, 2007 (noted here) wends its way through Committee stage in the Dáil (just in time for enactment before the general election, one hopes), it seems that today (15 March 2007 – the Ides of March, methinks) is World Consumer Rights Day (noted here by the NZ Free Speech blog Section 14; for more background see days that matter and also here), and tomorrow (16 March 2007) is the 9th European Consumer Day.
In Ireland, the National Consumer Agency (NCA, which will incorporate the Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs (ODCA) later this year, is the state body established (according to its website) “to be a powerful advocate on behalf of consumers” and it will “also have a leading role in consumer information, research, education and awareness”; whilst the Consumers’ Association of Ireland (CAI) is (according to its website) “an independent, non-profit organisation working on behalf of Irish consumers”. …
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