Contract Law
Introduction
Contract law is probably the largest major heading in the common law system. What follows hereunder is only a thin cross-section of the total subject matter, but it is enough for the purposes of an investigator gathering circumstantial evidence.
Investigators are seldom called upon to investigate a contract law matter, but all instances of commercial operations involve a contract of some sort. It can sway a legal argument and the outcome if the basis of engagement between parties is invalid or if conduct between them implies a new, unwritten term or the contract. Therefore understanding contract law can assist the investigator in determining what to inquire into and to draw attention to in a brief of evidence or report. If you are a contractor yourself, it is useful to understand your own rights, or lack thereof.
Contracts lie at the heart of all commerce and employment, though rarely are the subject of an investigation involving outside parties; however many times investigators are called upon to investigate assets, interests and liabilities which came into being in at least one transaction – such as real estate, or an insurance contract. Therefore it is of interest for an investigator to understand the legal/commercial backdrop to their inquiries.
Some documents or verbal agreements can be promissory in nature, but there may be insufficient material clearly to define rights and obligations on both sides and a mutual intention to be legally bound. A contract may void due to being highly onerous for one party without a clear warning from the other, or it may attempt to add further obligations on one side and not the other as an alteration to a pre-existing relationship. There may be wrongful advantage being taken such as to void the contract from the beginning. Circumstances may arise which excuse a party from any further performance of a contract that would otherwise by enforceable.
Lastly, in spite of the importance of contract law to commerce of all kinds, the parties themselves will ordinarily hold most of the necessary evidence in a contract-based dispute. A lot of this is in the form of written contracts, logs, accounts, receipts, invoices, emails and order forms which are reflexively kept on hand by businesses. When these are not kept on hand much of the information is not of the kind a person will remember reliably. This means an investigator will utilise this knowledge principally when a contract comes up as peripheral to the concerns under inquiry.