What do you think is necessary to have a good, valid, legitimate contract? Why? Remember, we're not talking legal, we're talking about what is right. Think with what you read and with the scenarios you read. Is the contract with the old lady and the shady toilet repairman legit? What about Hume and his subtenant's contractor? The newspaper guy? The squeegee man? The marriage with infidelity? Is there a difference between a contract that is inherently not binding (for reasons of coercion, perhaps, or because it's unjust, or because you don't have the right to make the agreement in the first place) and a contract that is binding and legit, but may be voided under specific circumstances? Someone arranged for his cat to agree to EULAs so he didn't have to: is this legit or not, and why?
Please get the conversation going! Between now (9:30 PM on Thursday) and class time on Tuesday, you should have made AT LEAST TWO comments. These comments should be thoughtful and engaging. The degree to which the ethical part of the course is boring or awesome depends entirely on you.
Also, you probably know this already, but don't answer the above questions like a machine. These questions are designed to get you thinking. And hopefully, posting.
Promises, Promises...
ReplyDeleteSo I decided to look at each one of these in turn and answer as I go along kinda stream of thought. Sorry if I drone on at times :)
1. Are you fracking kidding me? Unless this leaky toilet required the replacement of all the plumbing in the house then there is no way this is just if the woman agreed to it or not. Reading it as just this short description it sounds like a plumber taking advantage of the elderly. Fortunately today we do have ways to correct this in kinda an old school way, shaming. By shaming we make someone feel bad or worse we make someone else feel bad for the person that was wronged to the point they then take action. Usually this is in the form of pressing that person to correcting the wrong.
2. Ouch, sorry dude but if you hire someone to fix something on a rental property without letting the owner know first your gonna get wacked for the bill. Sucks? Yeah, even if this was something that was necessary. For the contractor, well they should know better. Get in, get it fixed, and bill the person who hired you. In the past when I've had to call someone to fix something I call the landlord first and most every time was told they could fix it or to have it fixed and include the bill with the rent.
3. This is actually a hard one and gets me fired up in so many ways. No, this isn't a voluntary contract and it's not fair. Making someone buy a good or service so as to avoid some form of retribution is extortion. And the guy is a total Dbag. I'd approach it in a less than nice way. I'd setup my webcam to watch my mail for it to get stolen and once it is I'd contact the police, postmaster general, and the persons employer.
4. No, I don't think your obligated to pay the guy and at the sametime I think you need to be proactive. When you see the guy wanting to wash your windshield just tell him no.
5. Yup I think the marriage contract is still valid in this case. And I think just because John did something wrong, and stupid, doesn't mean Mary should. The couple needs to talk and decide if this marriage is going to proceed forward.
This topic of consent and whether or not contracts are fair is very debatable. I always tell people to read that small fine print at the bottom of a page or even on ads, that most people tend to ignore. Then again, some might just sign away simply because they want something done quickly and not think about the consequences.
ReplyDeleteFor example, a close relative of mine decided to hire a landscaper to redo his yard and was given a price for about $40K. The quote of course was a bit overboard, but he agreed to the contract. So I asked why would he agree to such an astronomical price? His response "I didn't have time to gather other quotes and I just wanted it done as soon as possible". So morally at that time, it was OK for him to pay that price, but he later admitted he should have requested other quotes for a comparison.
Another great example is during the housing bubble from a few years ago where people were applying for mortgages based on adjustable rates. Bank loaners knew that someone making $50K a year could not financially afford a home at $600K with little down payment and consumers assumed that rates were going to continue to drop. But contracts were signed and both lenders and borrowers were at fault.
First and foremost, the consumer should have asked a series of questions like, will the rates increase? If so, what will the required payment be and whether or not he or she would be able to afford it. Now lenders should have done two things in my opinion, 1. Evaluate whether or not a borrower would qualify and 2. Explain in writing and verbally the difference in payments if rates were to go up.
Conclusion, it is all about educating and researching for yourself on what will best fit your needs. You need to look after yourself because the other party is also looking out for his/her best interest. Agreements should be met on pros, cons and consequences.
I agree with Corey on his response to question 2. Tenants are obligated to address landlords of any damages or needed repairs. But landlords are also required to go through an apartment with the tenant and assess the apartment for needed repairs. If tenant proceeds with hiring a contractor for repairs without the landlord's consent, then that should constitute a failure on mutual agreement. Both parties (tenant & landlord) should agree to alleviate any miscommunication.
ReplyDeleteYOU. HAVE. TO. BE. KIDDING. ME.
ReplyDeleteI just figured I'd let everybody know what I've gone through for the past hour and a half. For the first 45 minutes, I type up 2/3rd of my reply, open up a new tab to google some things. After finishing on those tabs, I try and close them. I meant to press the hotkey for close window (command + w), but instead I pressed the hotkey for close ALL windows (command + q), erasing everything. So I suck it up, and go for it again. This time, I get about 4/5ths of the way through, and then my laptop goes into kernel panic(apparently due to crappy RAM I ordered not too long ago) and throws up the error message posted below. Once again, erasing all my work.
I think for all future responses, I'm going to type up my responses in Word. :( Third time's a charm though, right? Hopefully it'll be up by tomorrow afternoon..
http://www.kernelpanicmac.com/images/KernelPanic.gif
ommederi, I agree that people should read the fine print of contracts. Unfortunately as I mentioned in class, most are written in such a way that you need to be at least a law student to understand the important details.
ReplyDeleteThe ones that aren't full legalese change whenever the company feels like it (credit card agreements for one). I know upon signing the original agreement, somewhere in there you agree to future changes sight unseen. Legal? Probably. Ethical? I don't think so.
1. Legal? Possibly. Ethical? Hell no.
2: I think that in MA (and probably some other states), legally a tenant can bill a landlord for needed repairs if the landlord has been aware of the problem (written records) and refuses to address it. The law doesn't say anything about 'reasonable' costs though.
3. Not ethical OR legal. I think it would be counted as extortion; mail theft is a serious charge and would be dealt with quickly.
4. Squeegee guy is not obligated to get paid; yes he's 'providing' a service, but the car owner can't consent (pretty much the only thing they can do is yell at the guy after he already started). Nobody should have to pay for a service they did not request.
5. The marriage contract is still valid; generally stupidity doesn't nullify it (unless it's already to the degree that lawyers get involved).
1. Majorly Unethical, but quite possibly legal if the contractor could prove that the elderly woman is in a sane state of mind. From the contractor’s POV this was the just thing to do, a huge payday for a small amount of work. From the elderly woman’s it is really undeterminable, if she wasn’t all there the price for the work that she needed done might have seemed perfectly fair and just. The view will vary from outsider to outsider.
ReplyDelete2. As the Observant Commuter said Hume would be obligated to pay by law in some states if Hume had refused to fix the problems. The contractor should have contacted the owner before doing the work, but then again the contractor could have thought that the subtenant had already contacted the owner and gotten the green light, this really goes into the gray area of moral acceptability without further details. The subtenant should have contacted James, at least, to see if he could get the repairs done. It looks as though the subtenant did not make an effort toward communication. I would rule this morally unacceptable.
3. I’ve have noticed that others have labeled this extortion, I would not. The man is merely offering a newspaper subscription and what is being labeled as extortion can only be substantiated to, at most, a rumor. Your fear is not based on a threat made by the man offering the newspaper subscription, this would be the equivalent to paying the guy the washed your windshield below because he looks like he might do something to you if you don’t The contract is voluntary or else most pharmaceutical companies (and most advertisements in general) are extorting you to buy drugs for you will feel bad, look bad, or have your heart or head explode if you fail to buy their drug. This is fair contract. If you wanted to refuse and setup a camera system (like Corey suggested) to substantiate or disprove the rumors with evidence you would be well within your rights to do so.
4. Legally you aren’t obligated to pay the man, morally it is a gray area, the man really could use the dollar or so, but you never wanted your windshield cleaned.
5. The contract would still be in place if Mary or John for that matter (if Mary slept with someone else in an act of revenge) did not file for divorce or annulment. The act itself would be grounds for divorce and could null and void the original contract. If Mary slept with someone else after discussing it with John through the “you slept with someone now I get to sleep with someone to make us even” routine I would say it would be perfectly ok. If not it once again falls into the gray area leaning heavily on the wrong end.
Woo!
ReplyDeleteThe first example was tough. Class on Thursday gave me the impression that the correct answer is the contract is unethical. Despite that, I am leaning toward the contract being ethical. The contractor didn’t engage in any sort of deception and there was no arm bending involved to get the elderly lady to agree. Upfront, he states that it will cost her $50,000. She has the opportunity to turn down the estimate and go with another contractor, but she assess the value of a functional toilet and decides that a functional toilet is worth more to her than $50,000 and accepts. If this contractor was the only contractor available in the lady’s area, and both parties were aware of this, then the contract would be unethical, however, this is not the case.
I’m going to have to agree with Corey for the second example. As a tenant, you should know what your responsibilities are in regards to the property you are renting. It is not a tenant’s duty to hire contractors to work on the property; that is the responsibility of the landlord. If the tenant had a problem with the apartment, he should have taken it up with the landlord. Now, the landlord is being whacked with a bill for something he had no say in, and likely didn’t want in the first place. The tenant should be responsible for paying the bill. As Corey said, the contractor should have known better as well. The contractor knew that Hume was the landlord, since he sent the bill to Hume, so he should have made an effort to get in contact with the assumed paying party before he went to work. I don’t necessarily see the subtenant’s or contractor’s actions morally unacceptable, just stupid.
This scenario is the most blatantly unethical of the five. By behaving like he has to the other people he has been turned down by, he is coercing me into paying for a subscription I don’t want. I would be giving him money out of fear. I don’t think the contract is voluntary, fair or ethical. In response to Carl, you bring up an interesting point, but I think that any sort of pharmaceutical company,(or any company, for that matter) distorting the truth or playing on the fears of the general public for increased profits is behaving incredibly unethical, much like the man who is committing a crime to the people who refuse to subscribe to the newspaper.
If I didn’t ask for the service, then you cannot expect me to pay. I can’t buy this man a new house and expect him to come up with the mortgage every month. It’s just not ethical… I don’t even think paying him anyway on the assumption that he could use the dollar is ethical, as the man would be taking advantage of his situation to coerce/guilt money out of me.
The previous example vaguely reminds me of something that happened to me about a year ago. A friend and I pulled into a gas station and asked for $5 of regular gas. However, instead of $5 worth of gas being pumped, $10 was pumped into the car. The man tells us that the machine had an error (whether that was true or whether the man made the mistake himself, I do not know), and asks us for $10 instead, since he figured we’d be using it in the future anyway. I told the man that we were sorry, but we didn’t ask for the extra $5 in gas, and refused to pay (At that point both my friend and I were banned from the gas station forever). I didn’t think I was obligated to pay, since it wasn’t my mistake, I didn’t ask for the gas, and I couldn’t really spare the $5 anyway (Poor college student… ☹ ). What do you guys think? Was I obligated to pay or not?
ReplyDeleteI don’t believe the contract is in place at that point. How can it be, one end of the bargain was not held up? What good is a contract if only one side is sticking to their end. Isabel and Carl, you say the contract is in place, but how is it still in place if it has already been broken by John? Am I expected to pay a contractor for work he or she hasn't done? Then how is one expected to withhold ones end of the bargain when the other doesn't?
As far as social contracts go, I might be a bit off the mark here, but the one I am envisioning is one between the common people and the government. The common people’s end of the social contract ask them to behave civilly, to not commit crime, to pay taxes, etc. and in return, the government offers the infrastructure for modern life, safety, etc.
I'm going to have to disagree with you sben. It is the neighborhood rumor that he does, it could be that the majority of the neighborhood likes the newspaper and a rumor was started to get everyone reading it.
ReplyDeleteTo put it another way let’s say I am a gun store owner, the only gun store in town. You move to this town and you hear a rumor that if you do not buy at least one gun from my gun store I will break into your house and rob you in an attempt try to scare you into buying a gun. Hearing this rumor you come to my gun store and buy a gun. That is a voluntary purchase; you came to my store and purchased a gun on a rumor. Now maybe this rumor came about because this is a guntown and the people there want everyone to own a gun and found that creating a rumor based on fear of reprisal was the best way to get everyone to own a gun. Now let’s change the rumor somewhat, if you don’t buy a gun your house will be robbed. So you go and buy a gun from me due to that rumor. That would also be a voluntary purchase.
Regardless of the origin of the rumor, or whether it is true or not, if I am buying a newspaper subscription I do not want out of the fear of a crime being committed upon me, it is not a voluntary purchase nor is it a fair contract.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, even if it were a false rumor propagated by my neighbors to promote newspaper sales, am I still not being taken advantage of for my fear of a crime being committed upon me? How is that ethical or fair for me?
In the first case, of the toilet and the elderly woman, I'd say it was unethical if it places the woman in a position of hardship. If she was filthy stinkin' rich, maybe she agreed because literally money was no object - in this case I'd say it was not unethical (even if, say, another member of her family felt it was taking advantage. I am assuming in this case she is NOT mentally inept and knew what she agreed to). If she might lose her home over this, or not be able to pay needed utilities, or would starve, clearly it would be unethical.
ReplyDeleteIn case two, the renter of the house should have contacted the owner. If the owner was impossible to reach or one whom ignored attempts to contact him, then the next move should have been to contact inspection services, and/or to put rent into a escrow. A landlord who is not getting money WILL respond (I am actually speaking from a past experience in this case)! If that fails, the contract of rental conditions are not being met - I'd say it is time to move. This little story makes me suspicious that perhaps the tenant was helping a buddy make some money by trying to force Humes to pay without giving him any voice in choosing the contractor himself. The contractor should possibly consider it a lesson learned that his responsibility includes assuring such work is approved by the home owner. I would say he was not choosing to see that facet as a moral obligation, which is just not acceptable. The subtenant that made a decision to fix things that don't belong to him was also not going through acceptable and legal means - which is also not acceptable.
The newspaper thing is laughable. I'd refuse, thanks. I'd also be sure to have a nice, locked mailbox. As the story is written however, I accept...but it is unethical, although it is arguable that choosing to get the subscription is voluntary (because I would personally choose IRL to say NO even in this case)...but it would have been unfair.
Squeegee scene - No. As others have said, you cannot be held liable for something you did not ask for. I probably would give the man a dollar, but for reasons that have nothing to do with "obligation".
Last, marriage contracts - from my perspective, I think that marriage contracts are a setup to later disaster but that isn't here nor there on topic....If the parties agreed, and one broke the terms, then perhaps the other person should be initiating divorce asap. I don't feel it would leave them free to do as they please until the contract is dissolved legally, if we are talking in terms of contractual agreement alone rather than realistic human interaction. I aso feel that marriage contracts can be unrealistic given the nature of human beings and our emotional and sexual complexities, but hey, that wasn't the topic :)
-Marie
Although I do agree with Carl -if it was put out there that she was now going to sleep with someone else and he agreed to get out of the doghouse, that is acceptable and I would consider it an agreed upon amendment.
ReplyDeleteI'm still not quite sure about the newspaper scenario. If you decline, and the seller then starts stealing your mail...the only thing that can be proven is that you declined a request which resulted in a crime.
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I think the concept of ethics and fairness in regards to any contract or agreement is a very debatable subject. For instance...
ReplyDelete1) In this scenario it would seem that the elderly woman fully understands that the contractor is going to charge her 50,000 dollars for her leaky toilet. Although this may be a ridiculous price given by the contractor and in some ways you could claim it unjust, the elderly woman continues to agree to that price.I understand how this could be seen as taking advantage of the elderly woman, however I disagree because the contractor gave her a price upfront. He didn't hide it in fine print, raise the price mid job, etc. I think the elderly woman made a big mistake, but will just have to live with it.
2)In this instance, I believe that the subtenant actions were morally unacceptable, because as only a subtenant he has no right to order repairs on a building he doesn't own, then expect the owner to pay for them. I think the actions of the contractor were morally acceptable, I feel as if they are just waiting to be payed for the work they did and are stuck in the middle of this situation. However, I do think the contractor should have attempted to contact the owner of the building before working.
3)In terms of just the contract being voluntary and fair, I say yes it is. You have the option to say yes or no to the subscription, regardless of the rumors that the man may steal your mail.
4)In this scenario you are not obligated to pay since the man did not have your consent nor any type of agreement to wash your windshield. The fact that the man then demanded payment is ridiculous.
5)This is a tough one I would say that the contract would still be in place even though John slept with someone else, but Mary's decision to sleep with someone else in return may be classified as just by some. Although I do not think it would be a good decision to make out of spite.
@ Sbenson09
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you on scenario #1. I see the other side of the argument, but i disagree. I think that the woman was told up front he wanted a large sum of money for a small repair and she agreed to it. In my opinion she may be elderly, but it doesn't mean she is stupid, someone with no knowledge of plumbing at all should still be able to use their common sense in a situation like that and say isn't that a little much?