Baby Bar cheat sheet

Acceptance of a unilateral contract requires complete performance; once the offeree begins performance, the offer becomes temporarily irrevocable and the offeror is bound if performance is completed.

UCC 2-207: a definite expression of acceptance operates as acceptance even if it states additional or different terms; between merchants, additional terms enter the contract unless they are material, objected to, or already refused.

Statute of Frauds writing categories: marriage, year (cannot be performed within one year), land, executor personally liable, goods of $500 or more, surety - mnemonic MY LEGS.

Pre-existing duty rule: a promise to do what the promisor is already legally bound to do is not consideration; exceptions include a third-party debt, new consideration, and UCC good-faith modification of a goods contract.

Mailbox rule: acceptance is effective on dispatch; revocation is effective on receipt; option contracts and irrevocable offers reverse this so acceptance is effective on receipt.

Expectation damages = loss in value of promised performance + incidental and consequential losses − costs and losses avoided; reliance and restitution are alternative measures.

Anticipatory repudiation gives the nonbreaching party an immediate right to sue or to await performance; the repudiating party may retract until the other party materially relies or indicates it considers the contract at an end.

Perfect tender rule (UCC 2-601): buyer may reject goods failing in any respect, but seller may cure within the contract time and, if the buyer rejects a nonconforming installment, may cure beyond that time on reasonable notice under UCC 2-508.

Specific intent crimes: solicitation, conspiracy, attempt, first-degree premeditated murder, assault, larceny, embezzlement, false pretenses, robbery, burglary - a good-faith mistake or voluntary intoxication can negate intent.

Common law malice aforethought is satisfied by intent to kill, intent to inflict serious bodily harm, reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to life, or felony murder.

Felony murder limits: the felony must be independent of and inherently dangerous apart from the killing; death must occur during the res gestae; agency versus proximate cause rules vary by jurisdiction.

Attempt requires specific intent to commit the target crime plus an act beyond mere preparation that is a substantial step strongly corroborative of the criminal purpose; factual impossibility is no defense.

Conspiracy requires agreement plus intent to agree and intent to achieve the objective; at common law no overt act is required, but most modern statutes require one, and withdrawal does not defeat liability for the conspiracy itself.

Self-defense requires an imminent unlawful threat, proportional force, and a defender who is not the initial aggressor; deadly force is permitted only against a threat of death or serious bodily harm.

Mistake of fact: reasonable mistake negates general intent; any mistake, reasonable or not, negates specific intent; mistake is never a defense to strict liability offenses.

Insanity tests: M'Naghten (did not know nature of act or that it was wrong), irresistible impulse, Durham (product of mental disease), and the MPC standard (lacks substantial capacity to appreciate wrongfulness or conform conduct).

Negligence elements: duty, breach, actual cause, proximate cause, and damages; each element must be proved by a preponderance of the evidence.

Res ipsa loquitur requires that the accident be of a kind that ordinarily does not occur without negligence, caused by an instrumentality in the defendant's exclusive control, and not attributable to the plaintiff.

Negligence per se requires that the plaintiff be within the class the statute protects and that the harm be the type the statute was designed to prevent.

Proximate cause turns on foreseeability; foreseeable intervening causes do not break the chain, while unforeseeable superseding causes (independent criminal or intentional acts) do.

Landowner duty: invitee - reasonable care plus warning of known latent hazards; licensee - warn of known dangerous conditions; trespasser - refrain from willful and wanton injury.

Children are held to a reasonable child of like age, intelligence, and experience, except when engaging in adult activities such as driving a motor vehicle.

Intentional torts: battery (harmful or offensive contact), assault (reasonable apprehension of imminent contact), false imprisonment (confinement to a bounded area), trespass, conversion, and IIED (extreme and outrageous conduct).

Strict liability attaches to abnormally dangerous activities, wild animals and known-dangerous domestic animals, and defective products sold by commercial sellers; comparative fault generally does not reduce recovery for intentional torts.