John meets Ralph at a party on Saturday night and offers to sell Ralph his camera. Ralph agrees to think it over. The next day, Sunday, Ralph contacts John and says he will buy the camera. Sunday contracts are illegal under the laws of that particular state. Is the contract valid? Why?
Answers:
No, as the actual contract would of been agreed upon on Sunday, John had only suggested the contract on Saturday, and Ralph had agreed to it on Sunday.
Since price is an integral part of a contract, and if price was not discussed, there is no contract.
However, in reading your scenario, you have an extra provision that contracts formed on Sunday are not valid, in James' and Ralph's venue/jurisdiction.
Thus, if even if price was discussed, the contract was not valid because James made his offer to sell the camera on Saturday, and Ralph tenders acceptance on Sunday; there must be both an offer and a valid acceptance, with consideration, in order for a contract to be valid.
Since the acceptance was tendered on SUnday, again, no valid contract.
It depends on whether the exchange is completed or not. Once that happens, it is an executed contract, and things change. Before then, it is Executory and can be set aside for illegality.
There are two theories to uphold the illegal executed contract.
One is if the contract is later ratified, such as if they made the agreement on Sunday but the actual exchange on Monday, or through passage of time.
The other would be because they both violated the same law, the very one that would be used to avoid the executed contract. That means the Plaintiff would be coming to the court with "unclean hands" and they wouldn't hear his case.
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