Law for Business Examination Paper Revision Guidance
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Course
Law For Business
Institution
Aston University, Birmingham (Aston)
It is a guide with answers to all potential exam questions. In depth answers provided and a deep understanding of all content assessed. For first year business students taking a module in law for business
BL1128 Law for Business
Summer 2019 Examination Paper Revision Guidance
General Points
1. There are 50 questions on the paper.
2. ALL questions are multiple choice and ALL have2`` 4 possible
answers to choose from.
3. All answers are worth 2 marks
4. The paper is structured as follows:
- 16 questions on the Unit 1 English Legal System
- 26 questions on Unit 2 Contract Law
- 8 questions on Unit 3 Negligence, Vicarious Liability,
Employment and Discrimination
Please make sure you revise the following for the exam:
Please ensure you read through all the notes for each Workbook
to ensure you have a broad understanding of all 3 Units. You do
not need to learn all the cases we have covered but they are
designed to help you understand how the law applies in particular
circumstances. You should then concentrate on ensuring that you
understand and know the content described below. You should
also make sure you read through and understand the specific
cases listed below under each Workbook.
For questions on the English Legal System (Unit 1) ensure you are
familiar with the following (you do not need to remember
historical dates, events, names of people etc.):
Unit 1 Workbook 1
(Pages 12 – 25)
What type of system is the English Legal System?
The ELS is concerned with the application of the laws of a particular
state. England and Wales. Laws are rules set by the sovereign
political authority known as “the Queen in Parliament”
They imply or express an intimation that the law giver will see to it
that they are obeyed: By threat of punishment, By threat of
intervention
What are the various sources of the Common Law? In other words,
what is the Common Law made up of?
The common law – the law developed by judges throughout the
centuries. Theory is it is unfair to treat similar cases differently – sets
precedent binding on future courts. The same legal reasoning – ‘the
ratio decidendi’. This is known as the principle of stare decisis
What do you understand by the Declaratory Theory of the
Common Law?
Page 1 of 44
, The Common Law comes from normal practice, folklore, usages and
customs of our ancestors over time. Shaped and ‘laid down’ (positus)
by all the Judges. Judges do not make the law they simply declare
what it has always been ‘The Declaratory Theory’. The idea is that
the law exists all the time and the Judges simply declare it. Thus the
law is shaped and made authoritative by the Judges. So Common
Law is simply the customs of our ancestors since time began and the
Judges simply declare them as law and thereby give them the force
of law.
(Pages 26 - 29)
What types of criminal offences can be tried in courts such as the
Magistrate’s Court, Crown Court etc.?
Where would you expect a person indicted for a serious criminal
offence to be tried for the crime?
(Pages 32 & 33)
What is the differences between criminal law and civil law.
Unit 1 Workbook 2
(Pages 2-6)
What do you understand by the ‘Law of Equity’?
As we have seen the Common Law system is a system e.g. common
to all people and has grown up throughout the centuries based on
the customs and practices of our ancestors. We have also seen that
the common law is made up of both private (civil) and public law and
indeed much of that common law has now been incorporated into
statute law e.g. criminal law, albeit some common law crimes still
remain e.g. murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, false imprisonment.
Equity on the other hand is not part of our common law but
corresponds in a general way to `natural justice` and comprises that
part of our `natural justice` which the old common law courts
refused to recognise.
Originally ‘Equity’ was administered in the court of Chancery and
grew up alongside the common law and was used where the
common law courts could not or would not grant a remedy e.g. fraud
It came about as a result of the very inflexible and restrictive rules of
procedure which encompassed the common law in early times - the
writ system which had to be used to initiate any action. Because
these writs were very rigid a litigant could be deprived of justice e.g.
where he had been cheated out of his property. Fraud, as such. was
not recognised by the Common Law.
Equity is based on a number of ‘maxims’ (see later)
How did Equity Start?
Occasionally a claimant would find that there was no remedy at
common law and his only alternative was to petition the Kings
Council or Parliament asking for some special relief outside the ambit
Page 2 of 44
,of the common law. In time this became an alternative legal system
where the Lord Chancellor (the keeper of the Kings Conscience),
acting on the Kings behalf, applied relief in those cases where the
common law worked injustice e.g. breach of contract, title to land.
The Chancellor was an ecclesiastic and head of the Kings Secretariat.
In 1349 Edward lll gave the Chancellor clear jurisdiction over such
claims.
Damages was the only remedy available at Common Law, which was
not appropriate in every case e.g. If a person borrowed property
from another and refused to return it, the true owner did not want a
sum in damages but wanted an order that the property be returned
but the Common Law could not give him that.
The Common Law had become very rigid and Judges became
reluctant to develop the law into new areas. If a claim did not fit
exactly into an existing ‘writ’ (known as a form of action) then the
claimant would have no remedy at Common Law. Certainty and
consistency were the watchwords, and the development of the
common law ground to a halt.
In the Common Law courts delaying tactics were widely used by
defendants in order to put off a disadvantageous judgment. Actions
could be stood down for years where one of the parties was ill, or
claimed to be so. Complaints of bribery and corruption were rife.
Many dissatisfied litigants, who had failed to achieve justice before
the courts, began petitioning the King as the 'Fountain of Justice’, or
the Chancellor as Keeper of the King's Conscience'.
The Chancellor began hearing the petitions he received. He did not
consider himself to be bound by the rigid rules of the common law
but decided his cases according to notions of conscience and
fairness.
Eventually, a new set of rules evolved (known as rules of Equity)
which remedied the defects in the common law and granted more
appropriate remedies than those available at common law. The rules
Equity proceeded on a number of ‘Maxims’
The maxims
Important Equitable Maxims include:
• Equity will not suffer a wrong without a remedy
• He who seeks equity must do equity.
• He who comes to equity must come with clean hands
• Delay defeats equity
• Equity is equality
• Equity will not assist a volunteer
• Equity looks upon being done that what ought to be done
• Equity will not permit a statute to be used as an engine of
fraud
Problems with Equity
Page 3 of 44
, There was no consistency in decision-making; remedies were
discretionary - granted at the whim of the Chancellor who heard the
case. A common description of Equity at this point is that 'Equity
varied with the length of the Chancellor's foot ‘
The famous case of Jarndyce v Jarndyce was a fictitious case
concerning the fate of a large inheritance. It was the central plot in
the novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens. In the book the case
drags on for many generations so that, by the time it was finally
resolved very late in the story, the legal costs had completely wiped
out the whole value of the estate so none of the litigants had
anything left to inherit. Dickens used the story as a means to attack
the chancery court system as being more or less worthless, with an
equitable maxim type of quote, "Suffer any wrong that can be done
you rather than come here (the Court of Chancery)!"
During the 17th century there was a growing conflict between
Common Law Courts and the Court of Chancery. Litigants who failed
at Common Law could seek a more favourable decision from
Chancery and vice versa. Effectively getting the decision in the case
overturned by the other court,
Middle Age Conflict between Common Law & Equity
Conflict arose between the Common Law courts and Equity courts
(the Chancery). By means of Equity it became possible to override
the judgement of a Common Law court and a bitter dispute between
the two jurisdictions arose. All the Judges retired to consider what to
do. As a consequence, in 1615 James 1 decreed that where the rules
of Equity and the Common Law conflicted, Equity should prevail (The
Earl of Oxfords Case 1615)
Thus Equity became established as a superior system of law.
Equitable remedies:Moral considerations, Asisstance ofpoor and
weak, relief in fraud, new remedies, More efficient and speedy
accounting machinery, oral examination of parties, liberal statutory
interpretation, Trusts/Mortgages/Wardship, More informal procedure.
The Judicature Acts1873-75
Up to now there were two distinct legal systems operating in England
and two distinct courts. The Common Law administered in the
Common Law courts and Equity administered in the court of
Chancery.
In 1873-75 these Acts of Parliament restructured the hierarchy of the
courts in England and Wales. In addition, the administration of the
Common Law and Equity were `fused` so that they were jointly
administered by all courts. It is sometimes said that equity is the
`gloss` on the common law.
So now there are not two legal systems or jurisdictions. There is now
just one hierarchy of the civil courts all of which apply both the
Page 4 of 44
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