VOIDABLE CONTRACT

Unit 3 A1: Mutual Agreement

From the onset, it would be prudent to note that a voidable contract could be conceptualized as an agreement whose enforceability, from a legal standpoint, could be affected by several reasons or factors (Turner 137). The said reasons, according to Turner, could be inclusive of, but they are not limited to; undue influence, duress, mistake, misrepresentation, fraud, etc. (137). There are numerous voidable contract cases that have been heard and determined in the past. One such case happens to be Weinberg v. Baharav, 553 S.W.3d 131 (2018). In essence, this particular case leans on duress and undue influence.

According to Blum, in the case highlighted above, Weinberg alleged that he had been induced to enter into an agreement to pay investors in his real estate business by a threat from the investors (454). More specifically, Weinberg made an observation to the effect that the said investors had threatened him with criminal charges if he failed to sign an agreement promising to pay them. To offer a background of the case, it should be noted that Weinberg was actively involved in the buying and selling of real estate properties. His ideal business model involved the purchase of a property at a reasonable price, renovation of the said property, and resale at a profit. The funds that Weinberg deployed in this enterprise were sources from external investors. These investors would benefit following a distribution of profits after a sale. In some rare cases, the prevailing property prices meant that a real estate property would need to be held for a certain period of time so as to reap some profits from a resale. In the scenario that triggered the suit, the market conditions made it impossible for Weinberg to get an ideal offer for the property portfolio he held. As time went by, his investors became impatient and demanded their funds back. Weinberg deemed the prevailing prices extremely...…ability of a party to make an informed decision was affected by threat or psychological pressure is largely a subjective issue.

In the present scenario, we can establish that the relationship between Weinberg and the investors, their demands and threatened course of action, as well as the prevailing circumstances would have made a person deemed reasonable feel unduly pressured to enter into an agreement of that nature. The threat in this case, if executed, had the potential to occasion great loss to Weinberg and his family. Weinberg could be considered the injured party on this front. Thus, there existed reasonable grounds for the courts to dissolve the agreement. In the final analysis, it would also be prudent to note that as was held in the case highlighted in this discussion, a threat to file criminal charges is regarded as improper, even if prosecution is warranted, because it is against public policy for a person to use the threat of prosecution as a bargaining…