City Of Waterloo Case Analysis
Concerning the legal action brought by the City of Waterloo, there are many ways that one could interpret the facts and as such could defend either party. However, based on legal principles and relevant precedents that outlined below, it is unlikely for the City of Waterloo to succeed in its lawsuit. Examining the case under close scrutiny there are various important points are important in coming to this conclusion. It is important to note whether the nature of the contract and the nature of mistake involved in this case. Furthermore, it is important to inspect how general legal principles established in previous cases would also apply to this case. In the combination of these analyses, it becomes clear that the City of Waterloo's suit against
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Only one of which is actually relevant to the legal action brought on by the City. The case of the Queen in right of Ontario et al. v. Ron Engineering in the Supreme Court of Canada in 1981, established that the tendering process consists of two contracts, Contract A and Contract B [1]. Contract A is a tendering agreement and while the Contract B is the actual contract to do work [2]. In this case, the City of Waterloo's call for tenders and the following bid by SoftX Programmers constitutes Contract A between the two parties. However, Contract B was never formed as it was never signed by SoftX. This might constitute a breach of Contract A; however, this idea will be explored further. In Contract A, it is an implied term that the contracting party can only accept a "compliant bid" and to treat all bidders "fairly and equally" [1]. As such, one could argue that the City of Waterloo did not properly follow tendering procedures because errors in a bid make it no longer compliant. Furthermore, depending on the judge's judgment, it may appear unfair to the other bidders to accept a bid that was neither compliant nor was the bid that the party would have made had they not made an …show more content…
However, there are cases in both Canadian and American law that demonstrate that this is not the case [1]. One of the general principles that show this was established by the Belle River Community Arena Inc. v. W.J.C. Kaufmann Co. et al.. Similar to the situation at hand, the Belle River case involved a bid that was much lower than intended. Both parties acknowledged the mistake in the bid and like the City of Waterloo, Belle River did not allow the contractor to revoke the mistaken tender. In this case, the Belle River Community Arena also sued Kaufmann for the difference between their bid and the next lowest bid [3]. The only major difference between this case and the Belle River case is that Belle River did not submit a formal offer while the City of Waterloo did [1]. However, in deciding the case and the support of this decision in the Ontario Court of Appeals, it is found that "In substance the purported offer, because of the mistake, was not the offer the offeror intended to make, and the offeree knew that […] The situation would be quite different, the Court of Appeal noted, if the offeree had not known the offer contained a mistake and had accepted it at face value." [3]. This constitutes a legal principle that ought to be applied to this case. It is best summarized as done in Law for Professional Engineers, "an
Only one of which is actually relevant to the legal action brought on by the City. The case of the Queen in right of Ontario et al. v. Ron Engineering in the Supreme Court of Canada in 1981, established that the tendering process consists of two contracts, Contract A and Contract B [1]. Contract A is a tendering agreement and while the Contract B is the actual contract to do work [2]. In this case, the City of Waterloo's call for tenders and the following bid by SoftX Programmers constitutes Contract A between the two parties. However, Contract B was never formed as it was never signed by SoftX. This might constitute a breach of Contract A; however, this idea will be explored further. In Contract A, it is an implied term that the contracting party can only accept a "compliant bid" and to treat all bidders "fairly and equally" [1]. As such, one could argue that the City of Waterloo did not properly follow tendering procedures because errors in a bid make it no longer compliant. Furthermore, depending on the judge's judgment, it may appear unfair to the other bidders to accept a bid that was neither compliant nor was the bid that the party would have made had they not made an …show more content…
However, there are cases in both Canadian and American law that demonstrate that this is not the case [1]. One of the general principles that show this was established by the Belle River Community Arena Inc. v. W.J.C. Kaufmann Co. et al.. Similar to the situation at hand, the Belle River case involved a bid that was much lower than intended. Both parties acknowledged the mistake in the bid and like the City of Waterloo, Belle River did not allow the contractor to revoke the mistaken tender. In this case, the Belle River Community Arena also sued Kaufmann for the difference between their bid and the next lowest bid [3]. The only major difference between this case and the Belle River case is that Belle River did not submit a formal offer while the City of Waterloo did [1]. However, in deciding the case and the support of this decision in the Ontario Court of Appeals, it is found that "In substance the purported offer, because of the mistake, was not the offer the offeror intended to make, and the offeree knew that […] The situation would be quite different, the Court of Appeal noted, if the offeree had not known the offer contained a mistake and had accepted it at face value." [3]. This constitutes a legal principle that ought to be applied to this case. It is best summarized as done in Law for Professional Engineers, "an