I think it calls for a lawsuit-about $2000/lawyer sounds about right.
Shows you the idiotic depths that the law descends to.
… but you are quite prepared to contradict people who do know the legal meaning of “frustrated” anyway.
Why is it idiotic? What would you do, flip a coin? What if a goat ate your coin?
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I thought Hal’s expertise was limited to sheep - has he branched out to other small ruminants?
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Clearly, in this case, the goat should be expected to cough up the money needed for the sale.
Quoth Elendil’s Heir:
But before you can even decide who the plaintiff would be, you have to do something to resolve the situation in the short term. Did any other money change hands? Who went home with the goat? In any short-term resolution of the matter, of course, at least one party is going to end up harmed, and that party could reasonably take the other to court, but which one of the two will that be?
Quoth Malthus:
It’s still relevant, though. If a man were walking down the street carrying a wad of cash for which he had no specific intentions, and a farmer’s goat reached over the fence and grabbed the cash, the farmer would certainly bear responsibility for his property’s actions, by virtue of his ownership. Whoever was harmed in this scenario was likewise harmed by the goat’s actions, and the goat’s owner therefore bears responsibility for that harm. The tricky bit is that it’s unclear, at the precise moment that the harm was inflicted, just who the owner of the goat was.
Actually, I didn’t address the “frustrated” part, but rather the “why the tort is required to be settled first” part. But I can see how it wasn’t completely clear.
Somebody is going home with a goat, somebody is out $100, and who takes the goat home is certainly a point of contention.
Is “frustrated” meant to address whether the contract is in place and legally binding or not?
Well, it certainly sounds a bit silly to spend $2000 apiece to decide a matter of $100. Though small claims court might make some sense.
It probably would be idiotic to hire a lawyer at $2,000 over a $100 dispute in most cases, but that’s being an idiotic litigant, not idiotic depths of the law.
Who owes whom what?
The farmer and the customer owe the lawyers of course.
The buyer demands his money back and refuses to accept the goat. The farmer, a crafty Yankee, waits around til the goat starts to crap and sells the goat for $100K to an unsuspecting buyer who thinks he bought a goat that poops $100 bills.
Careful, the goat might eat your strawman.
No, I disagree - that depends on whether the jursisdiction has strict liability legislation.
Negligence doesn’t work like that, at least not here in Canada. Under the common law of negligence, what has to be demonstrated is whether any person owed a duty to prevent reasonably foreseeable harm from happening, whether that duty was breached, and whether the person claiming damages was in some sense the authour of their own misfortune (contributory negligence).
In this case, the harm is the eating of the money. If the common law applies, presumably the owner of the money will argue that the farmer had a duty to secure the goat in such a manner that it could not eat the money, which duty the farmer breached, and that the harm was reasonably foreseeable because of goats’ well-known habits of eating everything. The farmer on the other hand will presumably argue that he was selling his goat in the usual and normal manner of goat-selling, that the measures he took were reasonable in the circumstances, and that the money-eating was an unforeseeable ‘act of goat’. 
Thus he breached no duty, is not negligent and is not liable.
The ownership of the animal at the exact moment the money was eaten isn’t relevant under the common law, unless some statute says it is. It may be in some jurisdictions that persons owning animals are strictly liable for all the damages that those animals cause, but that’s a statutory change to the common law.
For example, in Manitoba there is an Animal Liability Act which does this, but not in Ontario. The Manitoba law expressly states it is changing the general law of negligence.
Here, presumably the goat was not “running at large” so strict liability would apply - in Manitoba.
As for strict liability in American common law, it only applies to wild animals, or domesticated animals where the owner had knowledge of the animals propensity for violence.
Otherwise the standard for domesticated animals, which includes goats, is the ordinary standard of negligence. Whether a reasonable person holding a goat would have acted the same way the defendant did in this situation.
Strict liability for animals where the owner had knowledge of their violent nature is based on the theory that no one is acting reasonably when they decide to keep an animal after being warned of its violent propensity.
The law varys throughout jurisdictions, but as a general standard, here’s the Restatement (Second) of Torts.
§ 518. Liability For Harm Done By Domestic Animals That Are Not Abnormally Dangerous:
Except for animal trespass, one who possesses or harbors a domestic animal that he does not know or have reason to know to be abnormally dangerous, is subject to liability for harm done by the animal if, but only if,
(a) he intentionally causes the animal to do the harm, or
(b) he is negligent in failing to prevent the harm.
§ 509. Harm Done By Abnormally Dangerous Domestic Animals:
(1) A possessor of a domestic animal that he knows or has reason to know has dangerous propensities abnormal to its class, is subject to liability for harm done by the animal to another, although he has exercised the utmost care to prevent it from doing the harm.
(2) This liability is limited to harm that results from the abnormally dangerous propensity of which the possessor knows or has reason to know.
First things first. Why did the goat go for the money if there was a tasty tort available?
Not likely. Specific performance is not common in contract law.
They are obliged to buy the goat for the stated terms. If they do not, they are subject to remedies for breach of that obligation, such as damages.
“Specific performance” doesn’t have the meaning I think you are attributing to it. It is an unusual remedy for breach of contract, where damages are judged insufficient.
If I contract with you to buy a crate of coke cans, or a goat, or whatever, I make an enforcable bargan to buy that crate, goat or whatever. I can breach it if I want, but then you have a remedy - a case against me for breach of contract.
“Specific performance” means that the court will not accept damages as an adequate remedy.
Edit: though if this was a unique, money eating goat …
That is exactly the meaning I used. The court isn’t going to order anyone to buy a goat or sell a goat. The only remedy that’s likely is damages.
And it’s not so clear cut here, because this is an ordinary sales transaction without any written contract, in which contract formation is simultaneous with performance. In other words, from my point of view, the contract doesn’t really exist unless at least part of the transaction has taken place, either the taking of possession of the goat by the goat buyer (and standing in the goat store with a goat next to you is not likely to constitute possession … it would have to be possession in a manner that the goat seller doesn’t have easy access to the goat) or surrender of payment to the goat vendor. In this case, neither has happened, so I think that there is a viable argument that no contract has been formed at the point that the goat has eaten the cash.
But that’s all my brief sentence implied - that there was an obligation to buy the goat. Not that the court would order specific performance as a remedy for the breach of that obligation. You are reading too much into it.
Disagree. Offer and acceptance is what makes a contract, verbal or not. In most ordinary sales transactions of course this does not matter, because a shop-keeper is unlikely to sue a customer who changes his mind before handing over the cash.
And in an ordinary retail sales transaction, offer and acceptance is indicated by performance. Until either possession is taken or payment is tendered, there is no enforceable contract. Either party is free to back out.
A vendor is unlikely to sue a customer who has changed his mind because no contract has been formed at that point.
Your cause of action would have to be non-contractual, such as detrimental reliance or unjust enrichment.
To add a new angle, won’t the Treasury Department replace damaged money? I wonder how much proof they require to do so.
The polymer security threads in the new bills supposedly indicate the denomination of the bill. Might these threads survive a goat’s digestive system?
I have never heard that bthe rules for contract formation were different for “ordinary sales transactions”. Presumably, if they are, it is the result of some statutory modification to the common law.
In Ontario at least, such sales fall under the Sale of Goods Act. This Act does not contemplate that no contract is formed until performance.
http://www.canlii.org/en/on/laws/stat/rso-1990-c-s1/latest/rso-1990-c-s1.html
In the US, I understand that a similar role is taken by the UCC. Leaving aside for the moment any specialized lkaw relating to livestock.
§ 2-204. Formation in General.