If a statement relates to the description of the subject matter of the contract, is this too fundamental a matter to be treated as no more than a representation? If the statement does relate to the identity of the very thing which is the subject of the contract, is it to be regarded as an absolute guarantee that what has been described will be delivered or is there room for the reliance-based approach of the majority? That reliance is a key factor even in relation to descriptive statements is also borne out in the following case: In Harlingdon & Leinster Enterprises Ltd v Christopher Hull (Fine Art) Ltd, the defendant company was asked to dispose of two paintings described in an auction catalogue as being by Gabriele Münter, a German expressionist painter. Hull, the owner of the defendant company had no expertise in this particular area. The paintings were to be sold at Christies. The plaintiffs were known to have an interest in German expressionist art and were contacted by the defendant. Subsequently, the plaintiffs bought the paintings, being aware that Hull had no interest or expertise in this type of art. A price of £6,000 was agreed for one of the paintings, but it was later discovered that it was not a genuine Münter. In an action by the plaintiffs against the defendant company, the Court of Appeal held that the descriptive statement did not give rise to an action for breach of contract. The reason for this was that, in order to give rise to liability, it was necessary for the descriptive statement to have been relied upon by the person to whom it was addressed. In the present case, it was sufficiently clear that the defendants did not profess to have any particular skill in relation to this type of art and that it was, therefore, not reasonable for the plaintiffs to rely on what the defendant had said: Harlingdon & Leinster Enterprises Ltd v Christopher Hull (Fine Art) Ltd [1990] 3 WLR 13, CA, p 18

1995 ◽  
pp. 257-260
1994 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M., Greenberg

Legally, the concept of fitness to stand trial is fixed and absolute. Psychiatrists view fitness as a homeostatic functional capacity. The Ontario Court of Appeal recently set a precedent (Queen versus Taylor) for a standard of fitness to stand trial by interpreting the criteria for unfitness as defined in terms of Section 2 of the Criminal Code. They held that only a factual understanding of these criteria is required by the courts. A person suffering from acute psychotic symptoms with delusions which relate to the subject matter of the trial, who act contrary to their best interests and who are disruptive in their behaviour to the orderly flow of the trial may still fulfill the criteria for fitness to stand trial. The writer illustrates some important implications of this decision and suggests recommendations to current legal interpretations of a clinical capacity.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moritz Sutterer

Abstract In February 2021 the Paris Court of Appeal (Cour d’appel de Paris) rendered a decision against the US artist Jeff Koons, holding that he had infringed copyright relating to an advertisement photography that was more than 30 years old. Jeff Koons is famous for his Neo-pop Appropriation art – kitsch for some, a provocative breach with the traditional notion of art for others. It was not the first time Koons has had to defend his work in court. The French decision is particularly interesting, however, as it shows a very narrow understanding of the copyright exceptions. It is an illustrative example of the issues resulting from CJEU’s approach in Pelham, Spiegel Online and Funke Medien, where the Court held that once the recognisability of original elements has been established, the only way out of the infringement leads through the formal exceptions and limitations of the InfoSoc Directive. Based on the decision, I will reflect on the openness of copyright for art-specific forms of referencing and in particular analyse the subject matter and scope of the parody exception and contrast it with less formal approaches to consider new creative elements. I will also analyse the question of applicable law in internet cases.


Author(s):  
Lorraine Janzen Kooistra

In this essay, Lorraine Janzen Kooistra explores the career of an important yet neglected artist whose work in the illustrated press deserves more concentrated attention. From 1885 to 1895, Clemence Housman (1861–1955) worked as an engraver for the Graphic (1869–1932), but by the mid-1890s there was little work in the trade since most papers were converting to systems of photomechanical reproduction. She then transitioned to fine-art wood engraving in the book trade, producing several exquisite titles in collaboration with her brother Laurence Housman, including The Were-Wolf (1896). She continued working the field until the 1920s, eventually producing her masterpiece, an engraving of James Guthrie’s ‘Evening Star.’ The trajectory of her career not only demonstrates how new reproductive technologies altered women’s work in the periodical press over the course of the nineteenth century but also reminds us of the thousands of other women who contributed to this industry but have been largely overlooked in press history. Indeed, as Janzen Kooistra’s essay makes clear, women were not just the subject matter or intended audience for periodical advertisements and illustrations; they were actively engaged in the production of the images that proliferated throughout the Victorian illustrated press.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 243-268
Author(s):  
Julie M. Johnson

AbstractThis article positions multidisciplinary artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis at the center of a web that spans Vienna 1900, the Weimar Bauhaus, and interwar Vienna. Using a network metaphor to read her work, she is understood here as specialist of the ars combinatoria, in which she recombines genre and media in unexpected ways. She translates the language of photograms into painting, ecclesiastical subject matter into a machine aesthetic, adds found objects to abstract paintings, and paints allegories and scenes of distortion in the idiom of New Objectivity, all the while designing stage sets, costumes, modular furniture, toys, and interiors. While she has been the subject of renewed attention, particularly in the design world, much of her fine art has yet to be assessed. She used the idioms of twentieth-century art movements in unusual contexts, some of these very brave: in interwar Vienna, where she created Dadaistic posters to warn of fascism, she was imprisoned and interrogated. Always politically engaged, her interdisciplinary and multimedia approach to art bridged the conceptual divide between the utopian and critical responses to war during the interwar years. Such engagement with both political strains of twentieth-century modernism is rare. After integrating the interdisciplinary lessons of Vienna and the Weimar Bauhaus into her life's work, she shared these lessons with children at Terezín.


1982 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-176
Author(s):  
A. J. G. M. Sanders

The Matrimonial Causes Act, 1 of 1973 (Cap. 29:07 of the Laws of Botswana) was passed by the National Assembly on 27 October, 1972. It was assented to by the then President of Botswana, the late Sir Seretse Khama, on 2 February, 1973, and entered into force a week later on 9 February, 1973. The Act applies to civil marriages only, i.e. marriages concluded in terms of the Marriage Act (Cap. 29:01); customary law marriages have been excluded from its operation. As its short title indicates, the Act deals with matrimonial causes, that is to say divorce, judicial separation and the annulment of marriages and matters incidental thereto such as the property rights of spouses, custody, guardianship, maintenance and the jurisdiction of the courts.During its first 10 years of existence the Act has been the subject-matter of many a decision of the High Court and provisions of it have been considered also by the Court of Appeal. Most of these decisions deal with divorce. In academic circles, too, the Act received attention, witness the review by Chris Himsworth in theJournal of African Law. This review was written immediately after the Act came into force. An updated account is therefore appropriate. As I intend to approach the Act from a broader historical and jurisprudential angle, I will deal with it afresh rather than use Himsworth's penetrating but positivistic analysis as a frame of reference.


Author(s):  
Andrews Neil

Occasionally English law will treat an apparent contract as void because both parties have suffered a misapprehension concerning the nature of the subject-matter. A shared fundamental mistake renders the supposed agreement a nullity. But this is possible only in extreme circumstances. English law adopts a narrow approach to mistake. In the leading case, Bell v Lever Bros (1932), Lords Atkin and Thankerton, members of the three-judge majority, considered that the test for shared mistake is whether an error has occurred which involves an essential difference between reality and the parties’ shared mistaken assumption. Because of the narrow way in which this restrictive formulation has been applied, the doctrine of shared mistake occupies a minor place in practice. An attempt by Lord Denning in Solle v Butcher (1950) to create in Equity a parallel and more pliable doctrine of shared mistake was repudiated in 2002 by the Court of Appeal in ‘The Great Peace’. But a contract can be a nullity where there is no consensus because an offer has been made to an identified person whose identity has been adopted by an impostor (who communicates other than face-to-face with the offeror). But if the impostor and offeror meet face-to-face, a voidable contract is likely to be found. This branch of the doctrine of mistake is known as ‘error as to identity’ or ‘mistaken identity’.


Legal Studies ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard McCormark

Reservations of title clauses have enjoyed mixed fortunes in recent times at the hands of the courts in Britain. On the one hand, the House of Lords has upheld the validity and effectiveness of an ‘all-liabilities’ reservation of title clause. On the other hand, claims on the part of a supplier to resale proceeds have been rejected in a string offirst instance decisions. Reservation of title has however been viewed more favourably as a phenomenon in New Zealand. In the leading New Zealand case Len Vidgen Ski and Leisure Ltd u Timam Marine Supplies Ltd. a tracing claim succeeded. Moreover in Coleman u Harvey the New Zealand Court of Appeal gave vent to the view that the title of the supplier is not necessarily lost when mixing of goods, which are the subject matter of a reservation of title clause, has occurred. There are now a series of more recent New Zealand decisions, some of them unreported, dealing with many aspects of reservation of title.


Author(s):  
Tilmann Büttner

Rule 222 UPCARoP, implementing Art 73(4) UPCA, demonstrates that the subject matter of the proceedings at first instance should not be repeated in toto before the Court of Appeal and that the appeal should not be burdened with new subject matter.


1986 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randy E. Barnett

I. IntroductionTwo kinds of remedies have traditionally been employed for breach of contract: legal relief and equitable relief. Legal relief normally takes the form of money damages. Equitable relief normally consists either of specific performance or an injunction – that is, the party in breach may be ordered to perform an act or to refrain from performing an act. In this article I will use a “consent theory of contract” to assess the choice between money damages and specific performance. According to such a theory, contractual obligation is dependent on more fundamental entitlements of the parties and arises as a result of the parties' consent to transfer alienable rights.My thesis will be that the normal rule favoring money damages should be replaced with one that presumptively favors specific performance unless the parties have consented to money damages instead. The principal obstacle to such an approach is the reluctance of courts to specifically enforce contracts for personal services. The philosophical distinction between alienable and inalienable rights bolsters this historical reticence, since a right to personal services may be seen as inalienable.I will then explain why, if the subject matter of a contract for personal services is properly confined to an alienable right to money damages for failure to perform, specific enforcement of such contracts is no longer problematic. Finally, I shall consider whether the subject matter of contracts for corporate services is properly confined to money damages like contracts for personal services, or whether performance of corporate services can be made the subject of a valid rights transfer and judicially compelled in the same manner as contracts for external resources.


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