Federation Business School
BULAW 1502: Fundamentals of Law
Semester 2, 2018 – Assignment
Answer both questions.
Question one is worth 20 marks (and your answer should be between 600 words long)
Question two is worth 10 marks (and your answer should be between 400 words long)
Submission instructions: To be submitted in via Moodle by 11:59 pm, Friday of week 9.
Always ensure you refer to relevant case and statutory sources to support your answers.
Question One (20 marks):
Rollinstone Ltd (Rollinstone) is an electrical wholesaling company operating through warehouses in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide. It supplies electrical consulting services and lights, switches and wiring to builders. The company has an excellent reputation for providing good advice, expert and prompt service and high quality products.
When a builder contacts the company, Rollinstone sends out an electrician to talk to the builder. Within 24 hours of that meeting Rollinstone sends an email to the builder with a list of recommendations, prices and an estimate of delivery dates. The client then fills in the details on the form sent with the email, signs and returns it by email, posting a hard copy and pays a deposit at the same time. The goods order is then filled and the work done by Rollinstone, normally within one week of the builder’s request.
Three months ago, the company was sold to Eminem, who is looking for ways of cutting costs. This includes replacing qualified electricians who leave with less-qualified people and looking for cheaper sources for equipment and goods.
Jimi Hendricks is a builder who has dealt with Rollinstone for some years. The credit terms, prompt delivery, prices and quality offered by Rollinstone are all important to him because he builds high quality houses and is often working under very tight timelines and profit margins. One month ago, he rang the Sydney branch as he normally would, to request assistance with the lighting and other electrical work for a new house. Bob Dillon, who failed his apprenticeship exams, has recently been hired as an electrical assistant. Bob was sent to give Jimi some advice. After his visit, the email from Rollinstone arrived as normal and, without reading it, Jimi duly filled in the details on the form, replied by email, and sent the hard copy plus deposit through the mail, also as he normally would. This letter is delayed because of a postal strike and does not arrive at Rollinstone’s offices until two weeks after he posted it.
It was only when Jimi rings Rollinstone to arrange for the work to be carried out (three weeks after he sent the email and one week after Rollinstone received the hard copy and deposit) that he discovered there are problems. He is informed by Bett Middler, the Manager of the branch, that some of Bob’s recommendations are impossible to carry out, that some switches have to be ordered from a factory in Asia, that a specialist electrician will have to be employed to do all the work that is possible to complete and that Jimi will have to pay an extra $1000 up-front if he wants this work to be carried out within three months. When Jimi objects, Bett points out that in the email sent by Rollinstone, the price and time estimates were clearly specified as rough estimates only, and that under a new company policy, Jimi’s order was not sent to the supplier until Rollinstone received Jimi’s confirmation and deposit by post.
Jimi is horrified at this bad news as he has only four weeks in which to complete the house or face penalty payments.
Required: Advise Jimi as to his legal rights. In your answer, identify any limitations to those rights and his ability to enforce them. Also, list any further information that you would find useful in deciding whether those rights can be enforced.
Question Two (10 marks):
The Torrens system of land registration (embedded in state-based land registration legislation) provides for recording, notification, prioritisation and enforcement of interests and claims in and against real property. The Personal Property Securities Act (PPSA) provides for recording, notification, prioritisation and enforcement of claims against personal property.
Required: With reference to the above statement, discuss the following (answer a AND b, OR a AND c):
a. The differences between real and personal property (4 marks)
AND
b. The differences in the nature and scope of claims supported under the land registration system as opposed to the PPSA (6 marks)
OR
c. Why the statement refers to “interests and claims in and against real property” but in relation to the PPSA refers only to “claims against personal property”? (6 marks)
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