welcome back everybody to the law of contracts this lesson we are continuing talking about the processes of bringing contracts to an end and we're going to begin with the first major method by which this takes place this is obviously through the idea of misrepresentation so this lesson is essentially going to talk about misrepresentation uh taking something of an introduction to the subject um we'll examine some of the basic terminology in this area as well as the ways in which uh misrepresentation dies into these basic conversations we'll explain what actionable misrepresentation is what it looks like we'll look at the delineation between void and voidable when it comes to contracts and we will just take a look at some of the basic case law in the area as well so as a basic preliminary we need to make a delineation between what is known as a void contract versus a voidable contract what is the difference between these two concepts well when looking at vitiating factors as well as other instances where there may be an opportunity for a contract to come to an end that is not obviously through the specific performance of a contract we will often use the language of void and voidable what these two things mean is if a contract is void it will be treated as though it had never existed in the first place in fact when a contract is actually considered to be void the law will just assume that it never existed in the first place owing to the fact that it could have never had any legal effect that's what void means it means that essentially has no basis for existing in law a contract will be voidable where an grieved party is able at their own discretion to render the contract void owing to some kind of Foul Play on the part of the other side of the contract so a contract is voidable uh essentially if there is a an agreed party let's say there is some breach of contractual terms for example and the person on the other side who has been agreed by this who by by this breach of contract um can say we choose to either void the contract and therefore it ceases to exist it no longer existed or we can carry on with maybe the uh imposition of damage or some kind of remedy for the breach that is what voidability means it means it has essentially the potential of being void um so long as the agreed party um at their discretion decides to do so but it doesn't necessarily have to be void so that's the distinction okay a contract is void if a contract is void then it is a far stronger claim you're making that it is is voidable um but it could still represent a void contract if the agreed party decides to do so in that way continuing on with the various different preliminaries and the key terminology that is attached therein let's make a distinction here between misrepresentation and actionable misrepresentation when we talk about something being actionable misrepresentation what we are doing here is referring to statements which are made prior to the formal conclusion of a contract which are made by one of the parties which are false or misleading and may induce the other party to ract on the basis of that false or misleading statement like I said the um the the resulting information is then inducive to the other party to then enter the contract so if I say if I tell a lie or I mislead some factual circumstance and the telling of that lie or the misleading of that factual circumstance induces another person to enter into a contractual Arrangement on the basis of that indu of that misrepresentation then we have what is known as actually misrepresentation there are a number of requirements to satisfy the concept of actionable misrepresentation and these include the fact that the statement must be a statement of material fact it must be something that is either false or misleading it must also induce the other person to contract as well um so these are the things that are required if you're thinking about or if you have a problem question that is that is on the subject of actionable misrepresentation you must first determine that the statement in question that is being that is being essentially discussed that is being analyzed as potentially being misrepresentation firstly that state must be a statement of material fact the statement then must also be either false or it must be misleading and then the false and misleading statement of material fact must also induce the other party to the contract um what do we mean by all of these things what is a Mater material fact what is a statement by material fact well it is something that is quite difficult to ascertain sometimes there are some instances in which it is very easy to ascertain um you you could for example uh have a contract for the sale of a car let's say a sale of a vehicle and you say that the car is working absolutely fine when in fact you know that it is probably not then that may be a statement of material fact about the about the quality of the product and because of that statement of material fact about the quality of the product that is false or misleading that may induce an individual to enter into a contract to purchase the vehicle that could be considered actionable misrepresentation there are a number of statements which could be considered to be fair rather than being false statements of um material fact and this is really where we get to the first uh case that we can look at in this area of the law the case of Bisset versus Wilkinson or biset versus Wilkinson from 1927 and this gives us an illustration of the idea of a material fact a statement of material fact and the extent to which it may be false as the result and therefore contribute to actionable misrepresentation the case itself was a case which concerned the question of whether a statement of opinion could constitute a statement of material fact for the purposes of actionable misrepresent resentation specifically the claimant in this case was the owner of a piece of land the defendant in this case was an individual who wanted to purchase the land from the claimant for some sheep farming the difficulty was in the representation of the capacity of sheep that could be kept on the land itself the claimant suggested that around 2,000 sheep may be the capacity when this turned out to be false the defendant refused to pay on uh pay the future installments on the basis that this was misrepresentation so the the uh the the defend the defendant in they are the defendant in this case because they refus to pay and then the claimant sued for breach of contract for their refusal to pay but the defendant's argument is this is false this is a false um statement and it was misrepresentation so what you see here is could the claim that it had a capacity of around 2,000 sheep could that represent a statement of material fact is that then a false statement of material fact well that's just something that you would understand on the basis of The Facts of the case whether or not 2,000 sheep could actually be on that particular piece of land and then finally um did that induce the defendant to actually contract with the claimant that is what the defendant argued was the case well it was held by the privy Council that in fact there was no misrepresentation on the basis that because the land had never been used for sheep farming the actual Capac it of that land the amount of sheep that could actually ever be put on that farm um could not be available information to the claimant the claimant was stating an opinion rather than a statement of material fact a false statement of material fact they believed that it could be around 2,000 as the capacity but they could never actually know that for certain because that piece of land had never been used for sheep farming so they just looked at how big the land was and made the assumption that they could Farm 2,000 sheep on it when this then turned out to be false this was not misrepresentation according to the privy Council they offered an opinionated statement and this statement was not made on the basis of fact and so as a result of which it could not be understood on the basis of fact and so the parties involved could not then sue on the basis of uh misrepresentation or at least could not refuse to pay on the basis of misrepresentation