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Contract - Promissory estoppel (Part payment (Common law - part payment of…

- - - - Blackburn LJ - "All men of business, whether merchants or tradesmen, do every day recognise and act on the ground that prompt payment of a part of their demand may be more beneficial to them than it would be to insist on their rights and enforce payment of the whole"
  - - - Fresh consideration/new element
        
        Pinnel's case (1602) - "a hawk, a horse or a robe"
        
        Different thing, different place, and/or earlier
        
        Doesn't work if paid later
        
        Tender of a different chattel
        
        Sibree v Tripp (1846) per Baron Alderson - "A man may give, in satisfaction of a debt of £100, a horse of the value of £5, but not £5. Again, if the time or place of payment be different, the one sum may be in satisfaction of another."
        
        Here also established that promissory note of sufficient novelty to constitute fresh consideration, because of peculiar obligation inherent in a negotiable security.
        
        Doesn't have to be adequate aka of an equivalent monetary value
      - Lesser amount paid by third party
        
        Welby v Drake (1825) per Lord Tenterden - "it is a bar to the plaintiff now recovering against the son because, by suing the son, he commits a fraud on the father, whom he induced to advance him money on the faith of such advance being a discharge of his son from further liability."
      - Extension of practical benefit test
        
        MWB Business Exchange Centres v Rock Advertising Ltd (2016) - accepted less and company stayed on premises - avoided a void period where no one was renting
        
        Not a practical benefit if simply didn't think would get it otherwise - must be something more
    - - Promissory estoppel
        
        CLP Trust v High Trees House (1947) per Lord Denning - "when a man by his words or conduct, had led another to believe in a particular state of affairs, he will not be allowed to go back on it when it would be unjust or inequitable for him to do so"
        
        "a promise intended to be binding, intended to be acted on and in fact acted on is binding in so far as its terms properly apply"
        
        legal consensus that Lord denning developed original doctrine beyond its established parameters - but now part of English contract law
        
        Hughes v Metropolitan Railway (1877) per Lord Cairns - "the person who otherwise might have enforced those rights will not be allowed to enforce them where it would be inequitable having regard to the dealings which have thus taken place between the parties."
        
        Judicial reaction - D & C Builders Ltd v Rees (1966) per Lord Denning - "This principle caused some eyebrows to be raised in high places. But they have been lowered since."
        
        Elements
        
        Clear and unequivocal promise to suspend existing contractual rights
        
        Either by express statement or by conduct which implies that promise
        
        Hughes v Metropolitan Railway Co - can be implied
        
        Woodhouse v Nigerian Produce (1972) - promise must be clear - expressed so will be understood in the sense required
        
        Lord Hailsham LC - "it would really be an astonishing thing if, in the case of a genuine misunderstanding as to the meaning of an offer, the offeree could obtain by means of the doctrine of promissory estoppel something that he must fail to obtain under the conventional law of contract."
        
        Change of position by promise in reliance on that promise
        
        Reliance need not be detrimental
        
        The Post Chaser (1982) per Goff LJ - "It is not necessary to show detriment; indeed, the representee may have benefitted from his representation, and yet it may be inequitable... for the representor to enforce his legal rights."
        
        But inequity is harder to prove with no detriment - Goff said proof of detriment is evidential as to the inequity of going back on a promise
        
        Alan & Co El Nasr (1972)
        
        Ajayi v Briscoe (1964)
        
        Brikom Investments v Carr (1979)
        
        Collier v P & MJ Wright (2007)
        
        Inequitable for promisor to go back on promise
        
        Normal equitable rules apply - "clean hands" etc. - must look at circumstances
        
        The Post Chase (1982) per Goff LJ - "It does not follow that in every case in which the representee has acted, or failed to act, in reliance on the representation, it will be inequitable for the representor to enforce his rights."
        
        D & C Builders v Rees - duressed into accepting less money
        
        Shield not a sword
        
        Acts as a defence to a claim - cannot be used to create new contract where no consideration in the first place
        
        It is not a cause of action
        
        Combe v Combe (1951) per Lord Denning - "the principle never stands alone as giving a cause of action in itself" - hadn't given up any rights in this case
        
        Principle should not be stretched - "it does not create new causes of action where none existed before"
        
        Because of this, it can never do away with the necessity of consideration completely
        
        1 more item...
        
        Came before idea of practical benefit
- - - - Allowed it to act as a sword and provide an alternative basis to consideration for enforcing a promise
  - - - Confirmation that cannot be used as a cause of action - confirmed again in Smithkline Beecham plc v Apotex Europe Ltd
- - - - C.L.P Trust v High Trees (1947)
    - - Tool Metal v Tungsten Electric (1955)