1. DISCUSSION. Which areas of law are relevant to selling and buying goods? Do you have any neg-ative experience, e.g. buying a faulty product?

Created by the team of authors.

2. READING (EXAM PRACTICE)

2.1 Read the first part of the text and for each paragraph 1 - 5 choose the sentence A-G which sum-marizes the particular paragraph. There are two extra sentences you do not need to use.

A Explanation of implied termsB Consumers purchase goods C What to do if goods are defectiveD Breaching conditionsE Sale as a contractual relationshipF Categorizing contracts and contractual termsG Consumer protection is not a new issue

Sale of Goods - Part 1

1 ____ In the eyes of the law, sale of anything is a contract which any would-be lawyer should know by now. Contracts involving sales of goods and services can be subject to various statutory provisions even though businesses as well as consumers are free to enter into contracts on almost whatever terms they like. A consumer may be defined as a person purchasing goods or services for direct use or ownership rather than for resale or use in industry. Since a consumer is seen as a weaker party, they have greater protection than businesses who take part in commercial trading. Consumer protec-tion law is basically contract law with bits of tort, and sometimes even criminal law, thrown in.

2 ____ Consumer matters and related problems have a long history. Even at the beginnings of the market economy, there were some remedies for private individuals who had been deceived or over-charged by dishonest traders. These might also face punishment, e.g. bakers being dunked into the cold waters of the river of Vltava or having their hand cut off in Medieval England. In fact, to guard against such misfortune, English bakers developed the practice of adding one more piece of bread to the standard number of twelve giving rise to the English idiom of “baker’s dozen” meaning thirteen.

3 ____ Legal issues relating to the sale of goods may be best described in terms of something going wrong, which applies to other areas of law, too, as people do not think of everyday matters as legal ones until they get injured or suffer loss. A typical situation you may get into is being unlucky in a

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English for Lawyers 3: Sale of Goods, CJV MU 2014

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shop and buying a faulty product. In general, you may go back to the shop and have the faulty prod-uct exchanged or have your money refunded, but a more likely scenario will be an offer from the shop owner to have it repaired, for free of course. In order to make any of these three options feasi-ble, you have to produce a piece of evidence proving your purchase, and you have to come to the shop within a certain period of time to avoid your claim being statute-barred due to the statute of limitation.

4 ____ There may be various types of contract out of which the express and implied ones have spe-cial relevance for sale of goods. These two types of contract have their counterparts in express and implied contractual “terms and conditions”. The express terms are pretty straightforward, being ei-ther spoken out or written down. The issue of implied terms is more complicated.

5 ____ As far as goods are concerned, the implied terms include the seller’s right to sell (which pro-tects the purchaser from buying stolen goods), the requirement that goods have to correspond to any description given by the shop assistant (or fitness for a particular purpose given by the shop clerk in the USA), and the requirement that the goods have to be of a certain quality (or merchantability in the USA), but this particular requirement does not apply to casual sellers but only to official dealers. These implied terms are called conditions, unlike warranties that mean less serious terms. Breaching a condition is more troublesome as it entitles the aggrieved party to discharge the contract whereas breaching a warranty entitles him only to seek damages the amount of which depends on the court’s decision.Created by the team of authors.

2.2 Read the second part of the text and for questions 1 -4 choose the best answer A, B, C or D.

Sale of Goods - Part 2

When goods are being sold, the time factor also has to be taken into consideration because a certain period of time may elapse between the goods in question and the money agreed are passed to the hands of someone, or, in legal terms, the title to the goods is transferred. The general rule is that the title is not transferred until the purchaser takes possession of the thing, but even if this has hap-pened, the vendor may still retain his title until the purchaser has paid for the respective thing. This may be important in situations when the purchaser goes bankrupt and is unable to make his pay-ment. In some transactions, time is of the essence, for example, in the case of fresh vegetables or daily press where the purchaser may refuse the goods if they are delivered late.

The warranties mentioned above are sometimes expressly excluded by sellers in special circum-stances, which is usually some kind of trade-off. For example, one should be wary if he (or more fre-quently she) sees a notice “as is” stuck in a heap of items, which amounts to saying that you are buy-ing something at your own risk and no refund or exchange or repair will take place if the item turns out to be defective. The item in question is, of course, offered at a ridiculously low price to lure less cautious buyers. Such warnings, or disclaimers, are used by sellers or service providers to avoid liabil-ity in the case of damage, loss or injury. You may come across them in various places where you can see notices saying that doing something is at your own risk and no other person can be blamed if you suffer damage or injury.

Another issue relating to the sale of goods is product liability, which is a special part of the wider con-cept of strict liability tort. This concept may vary from country to country, generally covering the legal responsibility of manufacturers or sellers to compensate for injuries caused by faulty products. Note

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the situation in England: until recently, if someone was injured by a faulty product he had to prove the negligence of the manufacturer, which could be quite difficult as most of the evidence was in the hands of the manufacturer. The new legislation passed in Britain according to an EU directive simpli-fied the matter and the requirements of proof, thus allowing action against the supplier and importer as well as the manufacturer.

The USA is a peculiar country in this respect as it is a highly contractual society, the consequence of which is the highest occurrence of lawyers in the world. The country may also boast the highest record of cases involving product liability, which is seen by many as a situation when things have gone too far. This, in turn, has backfired on the consumers themselves as the manufacturers have to include insurance in their prices to cover legal costs that they may incur. So a guy who smoked a pack of cigarettes every day and contracted lung cancer may succeed in suing a tobacco company for fail-ing to tell him clearly enough that it was harmful to his health. There have also been attempts to ex-tend this logic to the field of arts when several rock artists were sued for alleged impacts of their works. In 1988, Ozzy Osbourne was sued by the parents of a teenager who had shot himself while lis-tening to Ozzy’s songs, one of which being aptly entitled Suicide Solution.

1 Transferring the title to the goods

A happens without handing over the goods. B protects the seller from going bankrupt. C enables the seller to deliver the goods. D can be postponed until the goods are paid for.

2 If time is of the essence

A the contract must be signed quickly. B the buyer can refuse late delivery. C the purchaser pays immediately after delivery. D the vendor can refuse delayed payment.

3 Disclaimers mean

A excluding responsibility. B that sellers cannot avoid liability. C that the goods are defective. D blaming manufactures for damage.

4 Product liability

A must be specified in contractual terms. B is a unified concept across the world. C provides for the requirements of evidence. D is a type of the strict liability tort.

5 According to the text, US consumers

A sometimes file unbelievable lawsuits.B successfully extend product liability to arts.C and manufactures care about insurance.D are interested in buying expensive products.

Created by the team of authors.

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3. Match the terms to their definitions (one term has two meanings):

1. disclaimer

2. merchantability

3. product liability

4. purchaser

5. refund

6. statute barred

7. statute of limitation

8. terms

9. vendor

10. warranty

A. the law establishing the maximum period of time within which an action must be brought

B. action, or right, that can no longer be the subject of a legal action because of the time limit imposed by the limitations act

C. the elements of a proposed contract

D. a guarantee given on the performance of a product

E. an implied term concerning the quality of the goods

F. a person who buys , buyer, vendee

G. a person who sells, seller

I. a repayment of a sum of money

J. refusal of rights or liability which might otherwise fall upon the person

K. the responsibility of a manufacturer or vendor of goods to com-pensate for injury caused by a defective product

L. a non-essential contractual term

Created by the team of authors.

4. DISCLAIMERS4.1 Where could you find a disclaimer? What does it look like?

4.2 Group work: think of a business, write down a disclaimer and pass it to another group to iden-tify your business.

5. CASE BRIEFS Law students as well as lawyers could be asked to provide a case brief, i.e. the facts and the outcome of a case. Such briefs can be presented orally or as written reports. In the following parts you are go-ing to listen to a sample case brief and analyze its structure and language.

5.1 Case brief - Listening

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a) In the following recording you will hear a law student presenting the brief of a case involving the issue of “shrink-wrap contracts”. Before listening, can you explain what “shrink-wrap” means? The pictures might help.

b) Listen and fill in the details of the case brief:

CASE BRIEF

Name of the case: ProCD, Inc. v. Matthew Zeidenberg and Silken Mountain Web Sites

Facts:

Legal issue(s):

Holdings/Decisions:

Reasoning of the court:

Based on: Krois-Lindner and TransLegal. International Legal English. CUP, 2006., UNIT 9, Listening 2

c) Summary: Complete the missing words:

The ________________, ProCD, produced the CD-ROM product Select Phone. It is a listing of over 95

million telephone numbers and addresses, combined with search and retrieval software. The

________________, Mr Zeidenberg, purchased copies of Select Phone, but decided to ignore the li-

cense.

Pro CD sued, alleging________________ of express terms of the shrink-wrap license agreement. The

main________________ raised by the case is whether a shrink-wrap license constitutes an

________________ sales contract.

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In the first instance, the District Court decided ________________ of the defendant. It

________________ that Zeidenberg had no opportunity to disagree with or negotiate the terms of

the license agreement because they were inside the box.

Then the case went to ________________. The Court of Appeal ________________ the District Court

decision and it ________________ the case back to the District Court. The Appeals Court noted that

the Select Phone Box contained a clear statement that the use of the product was

________________ to the license terms contained in the box. Zeidenberg had the opportunity to re-

ject the contract if he found the________________ unacceptable by returning the software. Instead,

he decided to use it. So, the court reasoned he was ________________ by its terms.

Based on: Krois-Lindner and TransLegal. International Legal English. CUP, 2006., UNIT 9, Listening 2

5.2 Case brief - Structure. Even though the form of case briefs may vary, they usually include the same items of information. Match the following sections of a brief to their description:

1 name of the case

2 facts of the case

3 legal issues

4 holdings

5 reasoning

a) a summary of the relevant facts, the nature of the litigation, what hap-pened in the lower court(s)

b) the chain of arguments which led the judges to rule as they did

c) who is opposing whom, with the name of the party who initiated legal ac-tion appearing first

d) questions of law raised by the facts specific to the case, often phrased in terms of questions that can be answered with “yes” or “no” (or in the form of an indirect question beginning with “whether”)

e) the court’s answer to a question presented can include narrow procedural holdings such as “case reversed and remanded”

Based on: Krois-Lindner and TransLegal. International Legal English. CUP, 2006., UNIT 9, Listening 2

5.3 Case brief - Language. It is helpful to remember useful vocabulary and collocations suitable for each section. Which phrases for case briefing used in the listening do you remember?

Put the following phrases into appropriate sections of case briefs:i) The court pointed out/noted that ... ii) John B. sued … iii) The question before the court is whether …iv) The court reversed the ruling of the first instance.v) The court drew the conclusion that …vi) The court upheld/affirmed the decision of the lower court.

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vii) The issue in this case is …viii) The case involves the following circumstances …ix) The court remanded the case back to the lower court for further proceedings.

Section Useful terms/phrases

1 name claimant/plaintiffdefendantappellant/petitionerrespondent/appellee

2 summary of facts The fact of the case are as follows:In the first instance, the court ruled in favor of………

3 legal issues The question raised is whether ………

4 holding The court held/ ruled that …………

5 reasoning The court argued/ reasoned that ………

Based on: Krois-Lindner and TransLegal. International Legal English. CUP, 2006., UNIT 9, Listening 2

5.4 Case brief - Presenting. When presenting orally good speakers use certain keywords to ’sign-post’ (signal) different stages in their presentations. Which phrases and which specific techniques did the student in the listening use to introduce the individual sections of his case brief?

Based on: Krois-Lindner and TransLegal. International Legal English. CUP, 2006., UNIT 9, Listening 2

5.5 Speaking: pair-work - briefly summarize the Zeidenberg case using the signaling and vocabulary for briefs.

Based on: Krois-Lindner and TransLegal. International Legal English. CUP, 2006., UNIT 9, Listening 2

6. BRIEFING CASES. Prepare a presentation of a case brief concerning issues relating to the sale of goods. Use one of the following descriptions or find a case of your choice. Follow the structure and language from the previous tasks.

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CASE 1: Česká pojišťovna ZDRAVÍ, a.s. v. J.M.

The plaintiff, an insurance company, sued the defendant and sought payment of a specific amount of money as unjust enrichment created in relation to performance upon an insurance contract. The dis-pute concerned in particular interpretation of insurance terms and conditions, which were part of the insurance contract and according to which the insurance should, in the event of discontinuance of self-employment, terminate. Since the defendant had suspended the performance of his business activities for a specific period of time, the plaintiff believed that the insurance relationship had termi-nated and sought return of the performance. The defendant had paid the premium properly during the entire period of suspension of his business activities.

According to the district court, discontinuance of the performance of business activities cannot be re-garded as satisfaction of the condition for insurance termination, and it dismissed the case. On the contrary, the regional court, as the appellate court, acknowledged the claim, stating that discontinu-ance of business activities results in termination of insurance.

According to the Supreme Court, it was necessary to interpret the ambiguous article of the terms and conditions with regard to actions of the parties to the contract. Subsequently, the court provided an interpretation stating that discontinuance of the performance of business activities does not cause termination of an insurance relationship.

The Supreme Court also referred to the provision of Section 55 (3) of the Civil Code, which stipulates that in the event of any doubts concerning the meaning of consumer contracts, such contracts shall be interpreted in the manner which is more favorable to the consumer. The Supreme Court exam-ined the wording of Council Directive No. 93/13/EEC on unfair terms in consumer contracts and it even uses a superlative: “… most favorable to the consumer” – in several language versions. The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the appellate court and remanded the case to the appellate court for further proceedings.

Based on: http://www.eu-consumer-law.org/caseabstracts_en.cfm?JudgmentID=826http://www.eu-consumer-law.org/caseabstracts_en.cfm?JudgmentID=826

CASE 2: Allen v DePuy International Ltd

A landmark High Court ruling has clarified the territorial application of the Consumer Protection Act 1987. The decision confirms that UK manufacturers are not liable under the Consumer Protection Act for injuries sustained outside the United Kingdom.

Allen v DePuy International Ltd concerned injuries allegedly caused by defective hip implants manu-factured by the defendants in England. The claimants had all received their implants outside the EEA (European Economic Area). Each argued that English law should apply to their claim – on the basis that the implants were all designed and manufactured in England – and that the Consumer Protec-tion Act applied by virtue of Section 12 of the Private International Law Act.

The court decided that the date of the event giving rise to the damage should be the date of manu-facture or distribution. The products in question were all first supplied to the consumer before Janu-ary 11 2009, so the claim fell within the Private International Law Act. The usual rule in cases falling under the Private International Law Act is that the law of the place where the injury is sustained

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should apply. The judge found that as none of the injuries were sustained in England, there was no case to answer before the English courts.

Further, the judge held that the Consumer Protection Act is not intended to offer redress for injuries sustained anywhere in the world. Although the implants were manufactured in England, the claimants were all non-EEA consumers who had suffered injury outside the EEA from products sup-plied to them outside the EEA. They were therefore outside the territorial scope of the Consumer Protection Act. As a result, even if the applicable law had been English, the claimants could not rely on the Consumer Protection Act in a suit in a foreign court.

Based on: http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a327c7e6-3a4b-4a50-93e4- de831be6b9b4

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a327c7e6-3a4b-4a50-93e4-de831be6b9b4

CASE 3: SARL v. SAS et SA Les Comptoirs

A Portuguese seller and a French buyer concluded a contract for the sale of a stock of pressure cook-ers to be distributed in a French chain of supermarkets. After delivery, some of the cookers showed a defect that made their use dangerous. As a result, both the buyer and the distributor brought an ac-tion against the seller claiming, respectively, termination of contract and damages even though only some of the products were defective.

The first instance Court held the contract terminated and awarded damages. Moreover, it ordered that all items were to be withdrawn from the market. The seller appealed, putting forward that ter-mination should have been limited to those cookers which were defective, whose identification was possible by looking at their reference number.

The appellate Court confirmed the lower Court decision. In so doing, it firstly held that CISG (UN Con-vention on International Contracts of Sale) was applicable at the case.

With respect to the merits of the case, the Court rejected the seller's claim. Since the number of the defective pressure cookers amounted almost to a third of the total number, the breach of contract by the seller (according to Art. 35 CISG) had to be considered fundamental (taking into account the kind of goods and the need of security in their use). Moreover, although the seller had alleged that the defective items had a different reference number, this did not result from the invoices, where they were referred to by the same number. Nor did the seller provide for another way to identify the defective items. Partial termination was therefore not admissible.

Based on: http://www.unilex.info/case.cfm?pid=1&do=case&id=984&step=Abstract

CASE 4: Dalmare Spa v Union Maritime Ltd

In this case, the vessel "Calafuria" was sold on Norwegian Saleform 1993 (NSF 93) terms which in-cluded the standard wording in clause 11 "she shall be delivered and taken over as she was at the time of inspection, fair wear and tear excepted".

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The Sale of Goods act 1979 (SOGA) provides that "Where the seller sells goods in the course of a busi-ness, there is an implied term that goods supplied under the contract are of satisfactory quality." However, the Act permits the statutory "warranty of quality" to be excluded.

In Dalmare Spa v Union Maritime Ltd, the question of whether clause 11 of NSF 93 is capable of ex-cluding the term of satisfactory quality implied by SOGA was considered by the English courts for the first time.

The case followed the sale of the vessel in 2009. The vessel and her records had been inspected by the buyers before delivery and nothing was discovered. However, just over a month after delivery the main engine broke down. It was subsequently discovered that, at the time of delivery, the vessel had a fault that was likely to fail within a short period after the completion of the sale.

The buyers claimed against the sellers for damages on the basis that there had been a breach of the implied term as to satisfactory quality as implied by SOGA. The sellers argued that the wording of Clause 11 of NSF 93 is inconsistent with SOGA.

The buyers succeeded at arbitration and the sellers appealed to the High Court against that decision. Their appeal, however, was rejected as the court concluded that the words “as she was” in the first sentence of clause 11 are merely a necessary part of a sentence which is recording the obligation to deliver the vessel in the same condition as she was when inspected, that they say nothing about what the sellers’ obligations are, either on inspection or delivery, as regards the quality of the vessel. Hence they do not and cannot exclude the implied term as to satisfactory quality under section 14(2) of SOGA.

Based on: http://www.clydeco.com/news/articles/clyde-co-wins-landmark-case-on-sale-purchase-contracts and http://www.reedsmith.com/Norwegian-Saleform-1993--Seller-Beware-01-09-2013/

CASE 5:

This dispute concerned the requirements needed to establish a practice between the parties.The defendant [buyer], the owner of a pizzeria in Germany, ordered 90 stacks of pizza cartons from the plaintiff, an Italian manufacturer of pizza-cartons. The buyer paid the price in advance. When the cartons were delivered in July 1998, the buyer noticed they had been damaged by the carrier and no-tified the plaintiff seller. On two previous such occasions, the seller had credited to the buyer the amount of the damages. On this occasion however, no amount was credited.

In October 1998, the buyer again ordered pizza cartons from the seller, which arrived undamaged. The buyer refused to pay the price purporting to set-off the seller's claim for the contract price of the October shipment against its alleged counterclaim arising from the faulty July shipment. The buyer based this counterclaim on the practices that had been established between the parties.

The Court dismissed the buyer's argument, stating that the crediting of the amount of damages on two occasions did generally not suffice to establish a practice between the parties under article 9(1) CISG (UN Convention on International Contracts of Sale). The practice would require a conduct regu-larly observed between the parties and thus requiring a certain duration and frequency. Such dura-tion and frequency does not exist where only two previous deliveries have been handled in that man-ner. The absolute number is too low. A different assessment would only be possible if damages had

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only occurred in three or four deliveries - or if the business relationship had commenced only re-cently.The Court ordered the buyer to pay the price for the October shipment plus interest from November 1998.

Based on: http://cisgw3.law.pace.edu/cases/000413g1.html

CASE 6: Hypoteční banka a.s. v Lindner

The case Hypotecní banka a.s. v Lindner concerned a consumer (Lindner) who had borrowed money from a Czech bank (Hypoteční banka a.s.). The consumer was a German national living in the Czech Republic. The loan contract contained a jurisdiction clause in favor of “the local court of the bank”, i.e. Prague courts. Lindner lived 150 km away from Prague. Yet, it seems that when the bank initiated proceedings against Lindner, it brought them before the court of its former domicile. Lindner, how-ever, had changed addresses, and the court was unable to assess where he had moved to.

The questions referred to the first chamber of the European Court of Justice concerned Section 4 of the Brussels I Regulation (Regulation 44/2001/EC) which contains special rules of jurisdiction over consumer contracts, generally designed to protect the weaker party (i.e. the consumer). According to Article 16 (2), the professional party may sue the consumer only in the courts of the Member State where the consumer is domiciled. Does this provision also apply to consumers who left their last known domicile and are simply nowhere to be found?

The Court held that the last known domicile had to be used for the purpose of each provision of the Regulation. It explained that it struck a fair balance between the rights of the plaintiff, who must be able to identify easily the competent court, and of the consumer. The judgment: in the case of a mortgage loan contract concluded by a consumer who is a national of one Member State with a bank established in another Member State, the legislation of a Member State makes it possible, in the case where the exact domicile of the consumer is unknown, to bring an action against the latter before a court of that State.

Based on http://europeanlawblog.eu/?p=231 and http://conflictoflaws.net/2011/ecj-rules-on- jurisdiction-over-defendants-whose-domicile-is-unknown/

7. LANGUAGE PRACTICE

7.1 Collocations a) Make sentences using the following words (one from each column):

The court rejectedaffirmeddismissedupheldreversedremanded

the judgment...the claim...the case...

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b) Which nouns from the second column collocate with the verbs in the first column?

to seekto suspendto awardto sustainto concludeto bringto stipulate

a contractdamagesthe performanceinjurya provisionan action

c) Make two-word collocations and fill in the blanks in the sentences below with the most appro-priate ones:

unjustinsuranceapplicablesatisfactorystatutory

lawenrichmentqualitycontractprovision

1) Where the parties have not chosen the _______________________ for contracts for the sale of goods, it will be determined based on the country of residence of the principal actor carrying out the contract.

2) A(n) _______________________ is a type of contract which is unilateral because only one party makes a promise (to pay compensation) whereas the other party does not make any promise and, to keep his part of the deal, only pays a premium.

3. Minnesota has a(n) _______________________ concerning reporting of drug abuse among preg-nant women.

4. Goods are of _______________________ if they meet the standard which a reasonable person would regard as satisfactory.

5. _______________________ may occur any time one party profits at the expense of another party.

Created by the team of authors.

7.2 Prepositions - fill in the correct prepositions bearing in mind that sometimes no preposition is necessary.

the court referred _____ the provisions of Article 20

the court interpreted the clause _____ regard to the actions of the parties_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

12English for Lawyers 3: Sale of Goods, CJV MU 2014

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the court provided redress _____ injuries

in the event _____ any doubts consult a lawyer

the court upheld the ruling _____ the basis that …

the court answered the question concerning _____ the meaning of the contract

the contract was concluded _____ a consumer, not a business

Created by the team of authors.

Case Study and Negotiations

I. Case study – Video Based on: Boston Legal - Deep End of the Pool, Season 02, Episode 24

1. Pre-viewing - brainstormingImagine you are a lawyer who desperately needs to get a case (to make money). What would you do?

2. Studying the case Clip 1 Sensitive man

Can you see any potential ‘to have’ a case?

How is the lawyer going to build his case?

Clip 2+3 This is America + real diseaseWhat is the case?

Clip 4 A fellow partner in the law firmWhat does Shirley think of Edwin’s idea?

What does the expression proximate cause mean?

Clip 5 Press ConferenceWho did Edwin file an action against?

Clip 6 Discussing the case in the firmExam Practice: Listen and fill in the gaps with suitable words.

Edwin has sued Lillian Corporation because he believed he had qualified …………………….. but it covers only what is said in court.

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The problem was that he made the statement in his…………………as a lawyer in his law firm.

Shirley informed her colleague that a motion to………………. has been brought against them. Apart from that they also brought a counter claim for ………..………..

To have the case resolved as soon as possible, Shirley decided to ………………….. notice to depose Phil.

She is hoping to get the other party to……………………….. the suit so that the whole thing can go away.

3. Negotiating Clip 7+8 Mr. Mickle's deposition

You will be divided into 2 teams and you need to prepare arguments for the defendant and for the plaintiff. The plaintiff’s attorneys are trying to placate the situation and ideally they would like the case be dropped.

Defendant’s arguments (Lillian Corporation , Lil’ Jimmies Snack Cakes producers )

Plaintiff’s arguments (Mr. Mickle)

Now make notes on the actual arguments used during the deposition.

Defendant’s arguments Plaintiff’s arguments

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How did the negotiation go?

Created by the team of authors.

II. Negotiation 1. Brainstorming

What are the qualities of a good negotiator?

Created by the team of authors.

2. Suggested language for negotiationsThe following text includes possible parts of negotiations with some suggested phrases. Complete the gaps with suitable functions:

A. Disagreeing politely E. Playing for timeB. Interrupting G. Offering a compromiseC. Making offers H. Rejecting an offerD. Accepting an offer I. Rejecting an offer and making a counter-offer

1. ______________________ We are prepared to make an offer in the following terms to settle this matter …

2. ____________________________________________We are unable to accept that …I’m afraid that we can’t agree to …

3. ____________________________________________We can’t accept that. However, we would accept …We can’t accept that proposal in its current form. However, if you were prepared to compromise on the question of …

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4. ____________________________________________We might agree to … if you accept that …We are prepared to … on condition that …If you can guarantee that … then we’ll accept the proposal.Provided that… we could accept …

6. ____________________________________________There is some truth in what you say, but …I agree up to a point, but …

7. ____________________________________________I think we are prepared to accept that …We would be more than happy to accept that.

8. ____________________________________________I’m afraid I’m not in a position to comment on that just yet.I’m afraid I don’t have authority to accept that without checking with…

9. ____________________________________________If I might just interrupt you for a moment, I’d like to …Can I just stop you there a moment? I’d like to clarify…

Based on: Krois-Lindner, Matt Firth and Translegal. Introduction to International Legal English. CUP, 2008.Krois-Lindner and TransLegal. International Legal English. CUP, 2006.HAIGH, Rupert. Legal English. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2012, 1 online zdroj (ix, 302 p.).

ISBN 978-0-415-69435-3.

3. Diplomatic language

What will the lawyer say when s/he thinks the following:

Created by the team of authors.

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4. Speaking - Practising negotiation strategies and language You will be working in two groups – counsel for Lillian Corporation and counsel for Mr. Mickle

In groups:

Identify the legal issues of the case Determine arguments for your side List the strengths and weaknesses of your side List your goals. What are you willing to give? What are you not willing to give?

Now, pair up with a representative of the opposite party and try to negotiate a settlement.

Report the results of your negotiation to the class.

Created by the team of authors.

III. LANGUAGE PRACTICE EXERCISE

In pairs test each other. Student A says the phrase in Czech, student B translates, student A checks the English translation

Student A

Zaplatí, aby se vyhnuli soudnímu procesu – They´ll pay to avoid a trial

Stojím si za tím – I stand behind it

Podat žalobu na – File a lawsuit/action against

Bezprostřední příčina – Proximate cause

vzdát se (zákonem stanovené) lhůty – Waive a notice

Student B

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English for Lawyers 3: Sale of Goods, CJV MU 2014

Intended solely for classroom use and self-study

Dokážeme, že jsou stejně smrtelné jako cigarety – We´ll prove they are as deadly as cigarettes

Podat návrh na zamítnutí žaloby – Bring a motion to dismiss a case

Vznést protinárok – File/bring a counter-claim

Stáhnout žalobu na – Drop the case/suit against

Urovnat mimosoudně – Settle out of court

Created by the team of authors.

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English for Lawyers 3: Sale of Goods, CJV MU 2014

Intended solely for classroom use and self-study