Weekly Reflection Week 5
Learning Team B
LAW/421
January 26, 2015
Stacy Mealey
Week 5 Reflection In this week’s reflection, we compared and contrasted common law and the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) Article. Common law and UCC contracts have a lot of similarities as well as differences. They both require that a valid arrangement be made between the person offering the product and the person accepting the product. However, UCC may deal with contracts differently from common law. Common law contracts deals with goods and services, real estate, intangibles or job opportunity contracts. UCC deals with contracts concerning the sale of transporting goods which are commercial contracts. The UCC basically apply to companies shipping products between each other. An example of UCC is a contract to transport lumber. Because contracts are legally bonded, they may or may not be edited. Common law contracts require precise cohesion of the contract. They have to be exactly the same as they were when the contract was signed. UCC can make minor changes to the contract. The statute of limitation for common law is 4 to 6 years. For the UCC it is only 4 years.
The UCC is a policy that strives to promote commercial efficiency. The UCC was drafted to promote the completion of a business transaction. (Melvin, 2011) Article 2 of the UCC is extremely helpful for merchants doing business with other merchants. One of the provisions that Michael found interesting was the offer with open terms. There are different scenarios in which open terms can apply to a contract. The quantities with open terms are not identified; therefore, in the contract specific language needs to be used to help the merchant understand how much the buyer intends to purchase. The contract could be written as an output contract, in which the buyer will purchase all the supplies from the merchant. The second is a requirements contract in which a buyer will purchase only what they need from the merchant, but only from that merchant. In the case of the requirements contract, the buyer promises to only purchase inventory from one specific seller. This can make it difficult if the buyer hears of a new seller with a better deal. However, for the duration of that contract, it prevents the buyer to purchase any of the products from anyone else. In Michael’s current line of work, he is part of a type of requirements contract. The government has contracted the services of a specific company for one year. That company then hired Michael for the year. The contract goes from year to year; Michael is also unaware if his contract will be renewed every year or if the government will go with a separate company in the upcoming year.
Part of this week’s learning element revolved around a very important topic-ethics. With this aspect of our lives (personally and professionally) in good health, we can be highly contributing members of whatever business profession we involve ourselves. Our team learned those businesses with strong core values and those who place emphasis on making sure the corporate code of ethics line up with each individual within an organization, will be stronger organizations. Additionally, we learned what could happen when organizations allow the upper management to deviate from and only apply certain portions of their ethical guidelines to themselves for personal gain. The results oftentimes show us that ethical codes and values management techniques are more than just
