Privity of contract

The doctrine of privity in the common law of contract provides that a contract cannot confer rights or impose obligations arising under it on any person or agent except the parties to it.

The premise is that only parties to contracts should be able to sue to enforce their rights or claim damages as such. However, the doctrine has proven problematic due to its implications upon contracts made for the benefit of third parties who are unable to enforce the obligations of the contracting parties.

Privity of contract occurs only between the parties to the contract, most commonly contract of sale of goods or services. Horizontal privity arises when the benefits from a contract are to be given to a third party. Vertical privity involves a contract between two parties, with an independent contract between one of the parties and another individual or company.

If a third party gets a benefit under a contract, it does not have the right to go against the parties to the contract beyond its entitlement to a benefit. An example of this occurs when a manufacturer sells a product to a distributor and the distributor sells the product to a retailer. The retailer then sells the product to a consumer. There is no privity of contract between the manufacturer and the consumer.

This, however, does not mean that the parties do not have another form of action e.g. Donoghue v. Stevenson – here a friend of Ms. Donoghue bought her a bottle of ginger beer, which was defective. Specifically, the ginger beer contained the partially decomposed remains of a snail. Since the contract was between her friend and the shop owner, Mrs. Donoghue could not sue under the contract, but it was established that the manufacturer has a duty of care owed to their consumers and she was awarded damages in tort.

Prior to 1861 there existed decisions in English Law allowing provisions of a contract to be enforced by persons not party to it, usually relatives of a promisee, and decisions disallowing third party rights. The doctrine of privity emerged alongside the doctrine of consideration, the rules of which state that consideration must move from the promisee. That is to say that if nothing is given for the promise of something to be given in return, that promise is not legally binding unless promised as a deed. 1833 saw the case of Price v. Easton, where a contract was made for work to be done in exchange for payment to a third party. When the third party attempted to sue for the payment, he was held to be not privy to the contract, and so his claim failed. This was fully linked to the doctrine of consideration, and established as such, with the more famous case of Tweddle v. Atkinson. In this case the plaintiff was unable to sue the executor of his father-in-law, who had promised to the plaintiff's father to make payment to the plaintiff, because he had not provided any consideration to the contract.

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Wikipedia