#24 - A contract between two parties is valid only if one

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[rneuman123@gmail.com]

I had trouble distinguishing between D and E. I see why E could be right, but I still don't see how D is wrong. Thank you.

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi rneuman,

We can definitely help you work through this one. To start, let us know how you diagrammed the stimulus and answers D and E, since we have several sufficient-necessary statements happening here. Figuring out if anything went wrong there will be the first step in me identifying how to best explain this to you!

[rneuman123@gmail.com]

I diagrammed it as J L V; then as J V or V J

I diagrammed D as J L, so is it wrong because it doesn't complete the chain?

[rneuman123@gmail.com]

wait. looking at it again I see that D is a mistaken reversal of J L
I think I found the problem with it!

[mN2mmvf]

Hi,

Just wanted to verify my understanding on (D) and (E). I originally chose (D), but think I see now why the answer has to be (E).

I interpreted the stimulus as follows:

Valid contract --> one party accepts a legitimate offer
legitimate offer --> NOT(someone in the position of the party to whom the contract was made would reasonably believe the offer to be made in jest)

Thus, to have a valid contract, one party must accept a legitimate offer, and that offer cannot seem to someone in the position of that accepting party as to have been made in jest by the offering party.

I chose (D). Hal made an offer, and that offer could not seem to someone in Lea's position to have been made in jest. Thus, if Lea accepts the offer, they have a valid contract.

Is (D) wrong because it incorrectly takes the satisfaction of the necessary conditions as having satisfied the sufficient condition? And (E) right because it correctly takes the failure of the necessary condition as failure of the sufficient condition?

[cdunne9]

Hi,

I also originally chose D, but through reviewing it I see that D is worded quite trickily.

I diagrammed it as V -> Accept legitimate offer
Reasonably believe made in jest -> not legitimate offer

D) states that the offer was made in a way that could not have been reasonably believed to be made in jest thus it is NOT a legitimate offer, and therefore no contract stands.

E) is correct however because if no legitimate offer was put forward, there can be no valid contract.

(Or so I think(

[James Finch]

Hi all,

It sounds like you guys have got it! The information we're given essentially diagrams out as:

Reasonably believed to be in jest legitimate offer valid contract

and the contrapositive:

valid contract legitimate offer reasonably believed to be in jest

Answer choice (D) gives us

reasonably believed to be in jest valid contract

which is a mistaken negation of the conditional reasoning in the stimulus.

Answer choice (E) diagrams out as:

legitimate offer valid contract

and explicitly and correctly says that being in jest or not is irrelevant, following exactly the reasoning contained in the stimulus.

[freddythepup]

Hi, I have a question on the diagram. I understand how you have derived the correct diagram above. However, when I tried to diagram this I ended up with two diagrams:

Valid contract --> one party accepts legit offer

Legit offer --> Does not believe offer is made in jest.

I didn't connect the two parts because I didn't assume that accepting legit offer is equivalent to legit offer. Can you explain why I can do this?

Also, even when I went through the answer choices with my diagram, I still got stuck between B and E because I knew that the other three definitely didn't work as they all made VC on the wrong side of the arrow. But B and E also didn't work because I couldn't really connect their separate parts.

[BostonLawGuy]

Hi, I have a question on the diagram. I understand how you have derived the correct diagram above. However, when I tried to diagram this I ended up with two diagrams:

Valid contract --> one party accepts legit offer

Legit offer --> Does not believe offer is made in jest.

I didn't connect the two parts because I didn't assume that accepting legit offer is equivalent to legit offer. Can you explain why I can do this?

Hi Freddy,

I think you misread the conditional logic. Although the conditional indicator IF is in the latter half of the sentence, it's still a sufficient (not necessary) condition. IF made in Jest not legitimate

Placement of premises (and conclusions) can occur anywhere. Conclusions can be in the beginning, and the sufficient condition can be the last half of the sentence. Watch for the conditional indicators.