In today's Contract class...

Teacher : Now, tell me, what is the remedy for innocent misrepresentation ?
Student : Damages and rescission ?


Laughs from the whole class.


Teacher : I repeat : what is the remedy -- stand up, I can't see you. What is the remedy for innocent misrepresentation ?
Student : Royscot and Rogerson ?


Even more laughs from the class.


Teacher : The first answer was "Damages and rescission". That was the first dagger to my heart. The second one was "Royscot and Rogerson". Let's hope there isn't a third one !
Student : What am I supposed to answer now ?


By now all the members of the class who were asleep were awakened by the guffaws of the whole class. I remember I was looking at him and I just couldn't bear it anymore ! I turned to look at the familiar faces - those of my friends - and all of them just couldn't stop.


Teacher : Okay, to avoid further damage to my health, I shall dismiss the class now.


Note : The actual answer is "Rescission or damages in lieu of rescission".

When we say misrepresentation, we refer to "false statements of FACT which induce you to have a contract with the person giving the statement". It must not be opinionated, like "I think this is so-and-so or such-and-such".

There are three types : fraudulent (the person is lying), negligent (the person was careless), or innocent (the person believed his statement to be true). For fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation, you can get both damages and rescission (this means that you can put yourself in the position before you entered into a contract - so say if you bought a purse for RM400, you return the purse and you get a refund). But not for innocent misrepresentation : you get either one.

Royscot v Rogerson is a case relating to misrepresentation, but I am yet to read my case material (I know the fundamentals by heart though).


We were all engaged in this quiz-thingy towards the end of class, where the teacher would give us several random questions on contract law. Today being my first week in class, I was automatically exempted from all chapters except Misrepresentation (today's chapter). I would've loved to answer a question on Misrepresentation as all the work seemed familiar - all the work from A-Levels was all coming back to me. : ) But it just had to be spoilt, didn't it ?


Truly, it's already my first week in LLB and I'm enjoying myself. Yep, no matter how harsh the journey may be, it's gonna be a fun ride.