Duty of honest contractual performance (or doctrine of abuse of rights)6
Duty of good faith (also implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing or duty to negotiate in good faith)7
Contract A and Contract B in Canadian contract law6
Related areas of law
Conflict of laws
Commercial law
By jurisdiction
Australia
Canada
China (mainland)
Ireland
India
Saudi Arabia
United Kingdom
England and Wales
Scotland
United States
Other law areas
Tort law
Property law
Wills, trusts, and estates
Criminal law
Evidence
Notes
1 Specific to common law jurisdictions
2 Specific to civil and mixed law jurisdictions
3 Historically restricted in common law jurisdictions but generally accepted elsewhere; availability varies between contemporary common law jurisdictions
4 Specific to the German Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch and other civil codes based on the pandectist tradition
5 Explicitly rejected by the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts
6 Specific to Canadian contract law both in Québec and in the country's common law provinces
7 Specific to civil law jurisdictions, the American Uniform Commercial Code, and Canadian jurisprudence in both Québec and the common law provinces pertaining to contractual and pre-contractual negotiation
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In contract law, an illusory promise is one that courts will not enforce. This is in contrast with a contract, which is a promise that courts will enforce. A promise may be illusory for a number of reasons. In common law countries this usually results from failure or lack of consideration (see also consideration under English law).
Illusory promises are so named because they merely hold the illusion of contract. For example, a promise of the form, "I will give you ten dollars if I feel like it," is purely illusory and will not be enforced as a contract.
It is a general principle of contract law that courts should err on the side of enforcing contracts.[1] Parties entering into the arrangement presumably had the intention of forming an enforceable contract, and so courts generally attempt to follow this intention.[2]
A promise conditioned upon an event within the promisor's control is not illusory if the promisor also "impliedly promises to make reasonable effort to bring the event about or to use good faith and honest judgment in determining whether or not it has in fact occurred."[3]
Methods of finding potentially illusory contracts enforceable include:
Implied-in-law "good faith" terms
Implied-in-fact terms
Bargaining for a chance
^Kirby J in Biotechnology Australia Pty Ltd v Pace (1988) 15 NSWLR 130
^See Portland Gasoline Co. v. Superior Marketing Co., 150 Tex. 533, 243 S.W.2d 823, 824, (1951), overruled on other grounds by Northern Natural Gas Co. v. Conoco, Inc., 986 S.W.2d. 603 (Tex. 1998).
an illusorypromise is one that courts will not enforce. This is in contrast with a contract, which is a promise that courts will enforce. A promise may...
of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The prospect of real gold overshadowed the illusorypromise of "gold men" and "lost cities" in the vast interior of the north.[citation...
consideration. An illusorypromise, or one which the promisor actually has no obligation to keep, does not count as consideration. The promise must be real...
P.2d 549 (OK 1936) mutuality of obligation, and an illusorypromise. It was not illusory to promise to buy all sand from one supplier, even though there...
March 26, 2023. Norton, Peter (October 21, 2021). Autonorama: The IllusoryPromise of High-Tech Driving. Washington D.C.: Island Press. p. 207. ISBN 978-1-64283-241-9...
and an agreement that only requires performance by one party is an illusorypromise, void as a contract.[citation needed] Instead, such an agreement constitutes...
Since 1850, Routledge, ISBN 978-1-134-59937-0 Raza, Ali (2017), "The IllusoryPromise of Freedom: Mian Iftikhar-ud-Din and the Movement for Pakistan", in...
the agreement is a "bare promise" and is unenforceable. According to Currie v Misa, consideration for a particular promise exists where some right, interest...
of South America, people placed their hopes not in the seemingly-illusorypromises of independence but rather in the rewards that could be secured by...
Hepburn: Arisu to Teresu no Maboroshi Kōjō, lit. 'Alice and Therese's Illusory Factory') is a 2023 Japanese animated science fantasy drama film. Produced...
contracts impose an objective standard upon what would subjectively be illusorypromises. In 1987, Posner dissented when Judge Frank H. Easterbrook, joined...
kinds of distinctions are often difficult to apply in practice or even illusory. At common law, a claimant's rights were limited to an award of damages...
subsequent promise to pay for them. Illusory Consideration: An agreement may be held as void if a vital provision is deemed to be illusory. That is, that...
of acquiring the illusory deer. Instead, the texts create an illusory Sita, who does not recognize the illusory deer. The illusory deer motif in the...
action causation: Using a magician forcing technique to investigate our illusory sense of agency over the outcome of our choices". Quarterly Journal of...
censorious state and that the enthusiasm for Liszt was "compensatory, an illusory substitute for the lack of agency and public participation among Berliners"...
opening and ending songs such as "My True Friend", "Storm Dance" and "Illusory City". She also participated in a lot of music shows, such as "Infinite...
simply option, is defined as "a promise which meets the requirements for the formation of a contract and limits the promisor's power to revoke an offer". Option...
escape, Rasselas runs in to find Nell. In a final attempt, Sofia creates illusory barriers, but Nell runs through them and awakens outside, finding that...
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