Agreements in Jurisprudence

AGREEMENTS  

Agreements are the vital product of vestitive facts made either as an act of the party or of law. The importance of the agreements lies in their operation.  Some rights cannot be acquired even with consent or agreement, for instance, the right to commit suicide. Salmond believed agreements to be similar to legislation. He says agreements are private legislation while later are public legislation both establish duties and rights. Hart says agreements fall within the power of conferring rules.

 Classes of Agreements

The agreements create rights, transfer them or extinguish them. Agreements are divided accordingly:

1.      Agreements Creating Rights: These are those agreements that entitle another person with some rights. It is subdivided into;

·         Contracts: These are the agreements that create an obligation or right in personam between the parties to the contract. No agreement is a contract unless its effect is to bind the parties to each other by the vinculum Juris (legal bound) of a newly created personal right. Commonly, it is a set of promises.

·         Grants: It is an agreement that creates other kinds of rights such a lease, easements, patents, franchises, powers, and so on

 

2.      Assignment: It is an agreement that transfers rights.

3.      Release, Discharge, or Surrender: It includes the agreements that extinguish rights

Kinds of Agreements

Agreements are of three kinds;

1.      Valid: It is an agreement that is fully operative in accordance with the intents of the party.

2.      Void: It is an agreement that fails to receive recognition or sanction. The will of the parties does not stand on legal efficacy.

3.      Voidable: This agreement is not completely void or valid but its operation is conditional and not absolute. Because of some defects in its origin, it is liable to be destroyed or cancelled at the option of the parties to the agreement. If the option is exercised the parties becomes void ab initio.

Void and voidable agreements are together classed as invalid. The invalidity is caused because of six elements that are;

·         Incapacity: Minority, lunatics, etc

·         Informality: Registration

·         Illegality:

·         Error or mistake

·         Coercion

·         Want of Consideration

 Objective and Subjective Theories of Contract

Subjective Theory: The traditional approach to understand the contract made was through subjective theory. The subjective theory focuses more on the inner intentions of the parties through the substantive document of the contract made by the parties.

Objective Theory: The difficulty to decipher the intention of the parties in contract arose a clash between the rule of common law and equity that led to follow the objective theory. The objective theory states that a contract is not an agreement, subjective meetings of minds but is a series of external acts giving the objective semblance of agreements. 

Salmond stated that objective theory goes too far one way, just as purely subjective theory would go too far the other way. The truth is this that there are some cases in which the law takes a subjective view and some cases in which it takes the objective view.