Practical benefit rides again

Abstract

This case note comments on a recent English Court of Appeal judgment departing from the pre-existing duty rule in contract law found in Foakes v Beer and extending the concept of practical benefit as good consideration to this situation. The note addresses the questions of precedent, the nature of the purported benefit in pre-existing duty situations, its relationship with the vitiating factor of economic duress and the future of the doctrine of promissory estoppel. The note argues that the Court of Appeal’s method of sidestepping recent Court of Appeal decisions upholding Foakes v Beer is open to question, that the Court of Appeal failed to consider the relationship between practical benefit and economic duress and that the future of the doctrine of promissory estoppel is in doubt.