Business Law: Negligence and Torts & Business Law: Contracts

the files with NT in the front are Negligence and Torts

Business Law: Contracts
8 Lectures,45 minutes/lecture
Course #561
Taught by Frank B. Cross
The University of Texas at Austin
B.A.,University of Kansas;J.D.,Harvard Law School

What is a contract?
How can you make one binding?
How can you avoid being prematurely bound by one?
What can you do to get out of a contract?
What remedies are available if someone breaches your contract?
What special rules apply to international contracts?

These questions and the other important issues of legally enforceable promises are covered in the eight lectures of this course.

Contractual agreements are one of the principal mechanisms for ordering life in society.
Whether a contract is written or oral, or even implicit, it carries with it all of the duties and obligations
that society has endowed with the force of law.

This series of eight lectures lays a comprehensive foundation in the practical and intricate body of law that governs contracts.

Your guide to contracts is Professor Frank B. Cross, Professor of Business Regulation at The University of Texas at Austin
and a former attorney with the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, D.C.

The Academy of Legal Studies in Business honored Professor Cross as the nation's outstanding professor.
The Business Week guide to M.B.A. programs has also recognized him as one of the nation's outstanding teachers.

Professor Cross is the author of more than 30 articles in journals of law, science, policy, and management.
He has published four textbooks for business law classes, as well as several other academic books.
Professor Cross serves on the editorial boards of four journals, including the American Business Journal.

When has a contract been made?

Lecture 1
explores the boundaries of contracts in law. It discusses the four main requirements that any contract must satisfy,
and it discusses the Uniform Commercial Code of the United States, which incorporated common law about commercial contracts into state statutes.

Lectures 2 and 3 give greater detail about the main components of a contract.

One party makes an offer and the other accepts, refuses, or makes a counteroffer, but there are many possible slips in between.
Which offers are binding?
Lecture 2 examines the preliminary issues of offer and acceptance, including the ability of parties to negotiate,
the definiteness of a contract's terms, and terms of acceptance.

In Lecture 3, we look at three more elements of a binding contract:

what each party must give up for a contract to be made ("consideration")
whether and when those of a "diminished capacity" (such as children or the insane) can make contracts
when a contract must be in writing.
When is a contract not binding?

Lectures 4 and 5 consider the possible reasons for declaring contracts void or breached.

When does a mistake by either party or fraud by one of them invalidate a contract?
When can a party successfully claim that an agreement was reached under duress?
In Lecture 4, you get answers to these questions.

Lecture 5 reviews problems with the performance of a contract,
including how much of a performance is required to consider a contract discharged, and other legal reasons for discharge.
What conditions will excuse performance?

What can you do when the other side doesn't meet its obligations?

If a contract has been breached, how do the courts decide how much you are owed?
Remedies for breaches of contract, and different methods for assessing the fair compensation in such cases, are considered in Lecture 6.

Special Cases: Third-Party and International Contracts
The series concludes with discussions of two unique issues in contract law: third-party rights in contracts and international contracts.

Lecture 7 explains the categories of persons who are legally permitted to enforce agreements to which they are not original contracting parties.
These might include beneficiaries of the contract or an assignee of a certain part of a contract.
The key questions are these:

When can rights under a contract be assigned to someone else?
When can a contract that benefits you be enforced by you?
Lecture 8 discusses international contracts and the practical and legal complications arising from them.
Simple translation is only the first problem, and there are hundreds of variations on rules among countries.
We focus on issues raised by international agreements, letters of credit, and other commercial practices.
A discussion of the United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods in contrast with U.S. law is included.

Course Lecture Titles
01 Foundations of Contract
02 Offer and Acceptance
03 Consideration, Capacity, and Form
04 Genuineness of Assent
05 Performance and Discharge
06 Remedies
07 Third-Party Rights
08 International Contracts
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Business Law: Negligence and Torts
(8 lectures, 45 minutes/lecture)
Course No. 562

Taught by Frank B. Cross
The University of Texas at Austin
B.A., University of Kansas; J.D., Harvard Law School

This course addresses two important questions:

* When is someone else legally responsible for harm done to you?
* When are you legally responsible for harm done to someone else?

This course of eight lectures discusses torts, the body of law designed to redress through civil litigation harms done to persons.

As with all bodies of law, in order to analyze the legal implications of a potentially tortious action, it is necessary to blend common sense and pragmatic thinking with an understanding of legal definitions as they have evolved over time.

This lecture series not only explains the basics of this substantive body of law, but it also gives insight through examples of how the law is based on a logical idea of a just outcome.

You have an outstanding guide to understand clearly this area of law. Professor Frank B. Cross is Professor of Business Regulation at The University of Texas at Austin and a former attorney with the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, D.C.

The Academy of Legal Studies in Business honored Professor Cross as the nation's outstanding professor. The Business Week guide to M.B.A. programs has also recognized him as one of the nation's outstanding teachers.

His conversational, clear, thorough, and humorous style makes this course a pleasure.
The Basics: Negligence and Intentional Interference with Property

Lecture 1 lays out the basic foundations of torts law, the three categories of which it is composed, and the legal factors necessary to find a person liable for a tort.

Negligence is discussed in terms of specific legal duties under the common law, and the standard of what a "reasonable person" would think or do, which is relied upon so heavily in this body of law.

Lecture 2 continues the discussion of negligence, especially of property owners, and the defenses that can be offered against allegations of negligence. You consider the duties of landowners to trespassers, guests, and others (such as the injuries of burglars or children who invade swimming pools). You search the causal connections that determine whether one person's acts are—in law—the "cause" of another's harm.

Lecture 3 discusses the flip side of property owner's negligence—the definitions of intentional interference with property. Your neighbor's tree interferes with your fence and your sunlight. You cook with mountains of garlic that vent into your neighbor's apartment. What determines intentional interference with property? You look at various cases. The nature of intent is discussed in terms of each of several kinds of offenses.
Defamation, Privacy, and Emotional Distress

Lectures 4 and 5 deal with the high-profile, occasionally controversial topics of defamation, privacy, and emotional distress.

In Lecture 4, you look at the law of libel (written) and slander (oral) that damage a person's reputation. Several requirements of defamation are discussed, as well as the privilege to defame which can attend commentary on public figures. You also examine when truth is a defense against libel.

Lecture 5 discusses the expanding tort of infliction of emotional distress, which can be either negligent or intentional, but which must pass several specific tests before it can be definitely labeled tortious. Invasion of privacy and the various forms it can take under common law are reviewed in detail.
Business Torts: Product Liability, Interference, Misappropriation, Trademarks

Lectures 6, 7, and 8 return to a more traditional conception of business law in their discussion of product liability, business torts, and trademarks.

Do cars need warning labels? Would it have any legal effect if they did? The extent to which a manufacturer is liable for damages caused to persons or property is explained in Lecture 6, including the several defenses, such as assumption of risk, which can be raised.

Lecture 7 discusses third-party intervention in contracts and prospective business, as well as the legal implications of misappropriation of information.

Lecture 8 closes the series with an interesting discussion of trademark law, and the considerations such as competition or likelihood of consumer confusion that courts must weigh before handing down decisions on such infringements. The cases discussed in this lecture look at intrusions on the trade name, appearance, and reputation of many famous products.