Assume the buyer and seller sued each other for only breach of contract. Neither party asserts a tort action. What result?
You sure? A quick google suggests that the concept of contractual frustration means approximately the same under English, Australian, US and Canadian law. That is, it involves an element of permanence. I can’t see any reference to the term being used to encompass a delay. I think you just mis-spoke.
The only relevance of the former to the latter is that it is might be used as commercial leverage or as a set off. The two causes of action are utterly unrelated, and the only reason that in this factual scenario they have anything to do with one another is that it so happens that the events possibly giving rise to the tort happen at about the same time and betwen the same people.
In practice, when a tort and contract question happen at about the same time between the same parties, it’s up to the judge what order to take them, and I would think the judge would set down the tort action first. The tort is the thing that caused the confusion, so it seems easier (if not legally necessary) to sort that out first. That said, there may or may not even be a contract issue, depending on the facts. And there may not be a tort, as mentioned, but it sure looks like one.
Since the paper the money is made of is indigestible, the original $100 will come out, in the end.
d&r
In my mind, the oral purchase contract had not been consummated and the incident occurred while the farmer was still the owner of the goat. The farmer is responsible for the actions of his animal while that animal is or should be under his control unless these actions are beyond the realm of any foreseeable possibility. Although unexpected, I don’t believe a reasonable person would be surprised that the goat ate some paper. Hey, it’s a goat after all. The farmer’s animal destroyed property worth $100 belonging to the intended purchaser who is totally free of negligence.
I understand this is a hypothetical, but the question has almost intentionally been tuned to be difficult to answer. In some sense it’s purposely situated in a grey area of the law. As such, answers are bound to in conflict.
Some aspects which make this a dubious question:
-
For the loss of $100, few people are going to court, or would even seek to pay for the advice of a lawyer. If it was more money, say $10,000, one would call into question the wisdom of either party exposing that much cash to an environment where it could come to harm.
-
The role of the goat is not established. Was it sufficiently penned or restrained? Was it behaving normally? If so, were both parties acquainted with normal behavior? If not, then one needs to question whether the owner was acquainted with the abnormal behavior. (E.g, if it was rabid.)
-
The larger social context needs to be considered. Is the transaction between two good friends who have years of business association? (The sort of thing one might expect in a farming community?) Then they might choose to write it down to experience rather than imperil their long-term business. Split the difference, go buy drinks, whatever keeps the relationship going.
The thing NOT to do here is further define the issues in 2) and 3), with the goal of purposely keeping the question in a grey area. That’s somewhat akin to a kid asking “Why?” repeatedly, every time a new explanation is supplied.
The OP did not present enough facts to reach these conclusions.
This is what I was thinking; assuming goats don’t digest cotton fiber, these two parties might be in luck. The U.S. government offers a currency-forensics service through the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, free, to the public who’ve suffered physical damage to cash. According to their website, they process 30,000 claims annually, resulting in the redemption of some $30 million. For ex., if you’ve had a stack of bills partially burned in a fire, you’d very carefully gather the cremains, including the ashes from those bills, and mail it to those currency experts. Assuming there was at least one more-or-less intact stack of corners left still somewhat attached to a small pile of paper ash, you’d probably eventually be credited with the amount they certify was legitimately lost. Your money doesn’t have to be 50% intact (if you’ve got that much clearly left, you can just take it to your local bank for an exchange), as long as there’s good evidence that the rest of it was destroyed.
I don’t know if they’re willing to work with excrement-tainted money, though, but the link cites “animal, insect or rodent damage,” as among the types of damage, so they probably do. In any event, goats shit small dry pellets, don’t they? Small dry pellets would offer a high surface-area-to-mass ratio, that might lessen the amount of poking and prodding required. It doesn’t seem as nasty to deal with as the manure of some animals.
The judge offers to cut the goat in half and give half to each party; one party or the other will withdraw his claim.
Or so I read somewhere.
That begs the question. Only one party is “out of luck.” The question is which party must do what you suggest to recoup his money?
Well, there is the practical matter that the goat owner may not wish to hand over the goat and then wait on the decision of whether he gets paid $100. The goat owner currently has possession of the goat and so will likely retain possession until the matter of the tort is resolved to see who owes what.
Furthermore, I can see the owner deciding to sell his goat to someone else for $150 if the opportunity arose. Then if the tort were resolved against him, he could cough up $100 to pay for the damages done. Of course, the buyer might seek an injunction to protect his access to the goat if ruled in his favor.
Naaa-aaaah-aaaaah, it’s not begging anything. Maybe doing a bit of an end run around the original legalistic tack [grin], but that’s part of our nation’s problem, isn’t it? – taking a litigious view of everything.
It stands to reason that the goat owner should duly exercise his due dilligence in collecting the doo-doo for a day or two and turn the droppings over to the almost-purchaser – hopefully using a heavy-duty garbage bag – who would then let them dry out thoroughly before forwarding them to Uncle Sam. Fast-forward a few months; the buyer would presumably get his money back from the feds, or at least most of it.
And I maintain that both parties benefit from this arrangement: turning to the feds for the currency redemption is the only course of action that might ensure that neither party gets screwed out of any money and can proceed with their intended transaction without lasting grievances. That transaction presumably benefits both (even if neither party had ever heard of a “Nash equilibrium” or similar economics concepts). And remember, the solution might not have been to assess a single-party responsibility; personally, I was leaning towards a 50-50 split as a fairer reflection of actual blame, given that the buyer should’ve been more careful in handling his money AND the seller should’ve been more cognizant of his goat’s destructive tendencies.
Contract: sounds like there was offer an acceptance, all that was lacking is payment; so the buyer is obligated to buy the goat for $100.
Tort: However, the buyer may have a claim in negligence for the improper securing of the goat. In reality, this would be a pretty long shot, as jumping up and snatching cash out of someone’s hand is pretty unusual behaviour (so preventing it is probably not in breach of any duty, not being reasonably foreseeable).
Most likely result: the tort case doesn’t succeed and the buyer is out $100 and now has to pay another $100 for the goat. If the money had passed to the farmer, he’d be out $100 - the goat would belong to the buyer.
The $100 was still in the buyer’s possession when it was destroyed. Unless the farmer can be tagged with its loss, the buyer bears the risk.
… and the buyer is entitled to any cash salvaged from the goat poop.
I know what you are saying is probably correct at a practical level, but what you have written seems to be intended to respond to my post. In that context, in short, it seems that there is no basis for saying that the contract was frustrated, and there is no reason why the tort action “must” be decided first, right?
This kind of situation is when gold coins make an acceptable medium of exchange.
Princhester, I can’t answer your question because I don’t know the legal meaning of “frustrated”. While I suppose there is no legal reason the tort must me resolved first, I can’t imagine the goat owner handing over the goat until the issue of blame is resolved, and I can’t see any legal justification to require it, assuming the money was in the buyer’s hands when the goat ate it.
Seems to me in that case the goat still belongs to the original owner until the issue of blame is resolved. If the money was in the seller’s hands, then the sale was completed, and the goat should go with the buyer. If they’re both touching the money, I can’t imagine how the goat got ahold of the money without taking fingers with it. If neither were touching the money, I wonder why they were throwing the money in the air or setting it on the ground in front of the goat.
Perhaps “frustrated” isn’t the right word, and a better word would be “interrupted”.
And speaking of recovering the money from the goat, I’m reminded of a story I heard. I was looking at hats, and saw one that is a soft field hat. The advertising had an anecdote about one owner who said his hat was stolen by his elephant that ate the thing. He recovered it from the other end fully intact. Apparently this occurred more than one time with the same hat!
Generally, absent statutes that may change the matter, a contract is based on offer and acceptance. If there is an offer and an acceptance of that offer, you have a contract that is enforceable. The fact that payment has not yet been made doesn’t change that.
So in this situation, it appears there was offer and acceptance. The buyer was about to make payment when his money was eaten. He is still liable on the contract, so he must produce another $100 … or whatever measure of damages is appropriate for breach of the contract.
The issue is at base “who bears the risk to the actual phsyical substance of the bills between the formation of a valid contract and payment”. The answer is that the buyer does.
The fact that it is the object that is being purchased which destroyed the money is a side-issue. It may be the case that the seller has some tort liability for that; probably not, though.
Where’s Hal Briston, Esq. when you need him most?
From what little we’re given to go on by the OP, my answer would be that neither owes the other anything. The plaintiff (likely the buyer) bears the burden of proof. The goat’s action was unexpected and could not reasonably have been foreseen. Neither person is clearly negligent. The buyer is not entitled to get $100 in cash back from the farmer. The farmer may, out of the goodness of his heart, now simply give the goat to the buyer, and probably would not be required to do so. He has not, after all, actually been paid for the value of the goat.
Oddly enough, when I was in a law school a goat was used as an example of arguing in the alternative. Say your goat got into your neighbor’s garden and ate his prize squash. In raising defenses to the neighbor’s claim for compensation for loss of the squash, your canny lawyer might argue:
- There was no squash in the first place.
- If there was a squash, it wasn’t eaten.
- If it was eaten, it wasn’t by a goat.
- If it was eaten by a goat, it wasn’t eaten by this goat.
- If it was this goat, it’s not my client’s goat.
- And finally, if it was my client’s goat, the goat is insane!
Those are conclusions that a jury (or the judge in place of a jury) must determine. Read the above posts for possibilities as to negligence. Was the goat’s action unexpected? Was the buyer not negligent in putting the money where the goat, known to eat such stuff, could grab it? But those matters involve any tort action. A contract was entered into. Absence any Statute of Frauds, it did not have to include any performance, let alone consummation, of the terms of the contract. So to say that neither party owes the other anything is ipso facto incorrect. The seller can demand performance ($100) from the buyer. The buyer can allege that he did perform his end, by tending the cash, and demand the goat from the seller. One of the arguments the buyer can plead is that the goat is the agent of the seller. Or not.