ABSTRACT
We have seen that a contract may be written or oral or a mixture of both. If a problem arises, it may become necessary to know exactly what its terms are. This may seem obvious in the case of a written contract, but it could be, for instance, that a crucial term was forgotten to be included, or that some terms were more important than others. With an oral contract, it is necessary to discover what was in fact said. A contract may be partly oral and partly written, for example where a ticket is bought for a train or bus, where much of the negotiating was spoken face to face, but with the ticket subject to a set of standard written terms. Here, as in other areas of contract law, the court attempts to look through the eyes of a reasonable person to give effect to the intentions of the parties.
