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$125.00⚖️ Action of Debt — Common Law Remedies for Fixed Obligations
Course Type: Legal Foundations
🧭 Course Overview
This class provides a structured study of the common-law action of debt—a foundational legal remedy for recovering sums certain or obligations readily reducible to certainty. Students examine the action’s procedural elements, pleading rules, defenses, and enduring relevance in modern commercial and statutory claims.
The course situates “debt” as both a legal concept and procedural form, showing how historical remedies inform today’s enforcement of monetary obligations, statutory penalties, and judgments.
🎓 Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
- Define and distinguish “debt” within its common-law meaning and differentiate it from unliquidated claims or damages.
- Identify the essential elements of an action of debt, including the requirement of a sum certain and the obligation’s enforceability in money.
- Analyze pleadings and defenses—such as nil debet, non est factum, and nul tiel record—and apply them to case examples.
- Trace procedural evolution from medieval common law to modern civil practice under state codes and procedural acts.
- Evaluate judgment and recovery mechanisms, including damages for detention, interest awards, and statutory debt enforcement.
- Compare debt and assumpsit actions to understand concurrent remedies and the shift from form to substance in contract litigation.
🧩 Topics Covered
- Definition and nature of “debt”
- Scope and concurrent actions
- Elements and certainty of sum
- Pleadings and declarations
- Common defenses and pleas
- Proof, trial, and judgment standards
- Amount recoverable and award of interest
📚 Format
- Delivery: Lecture-based with discussion on case law excerpts and procedural forms
- Duration: 10 small classes | Self-paced study
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$500.00💳 Law of Payments — Legal Discharge and Settlement under Commercial Law
🧭 Course Overview
This class examines the law of payment — the doctrines, statutory rules, and equitable principles governing the satisfaction, discharge, and extinguishment of obligations. Rooted in common-law concepts of tender and performance, the law of payment defines how debt and liability are lawfully settled in both commercial and personal contexts.
This course analyzes the evolution of payment from tangible tender to negotiable instruments and digital transfers, exploring the elements that constitute valid payment, the roles of payor and payee, and the legal consequences of acceptance, mistake, or refusal.
🎓 Learning Outcomes
Upon completing this course, participants will be able to:
- Define “payment” in law and distinguish it from tender, accord and satisfaction, and performance.
- Identify the essential elements of lawful payment, including voluntary intent, lawful currency or medium, and acceptance by the creditor.
- Apply common-law and statutory rules that determine when a debt is extinguished or merely suspended.
- Analyze payment through instruments — such as checks, promissory notes, and electronic transfers — under UCC Articles 3 and 4.
- Evaluate the rights and duties of parties, including payment by third persons, payment under mistake, and recovery of overpayment.
- Interpret judicial reasoning on disputes involving partial payment, conditional payment, and discharge through non-cash equivalents.
🧩 Topics Covered
- Definition and nature of payment
- Relation between payment, tender, and discharge
- Payment by money, negotiable instruments, and credit instruments
- Payment under mistake or duress
- Allocation of payments and order of application
- Presumption and burden of proof
- Effect of payment on joint obligations and suretyship
📚 Format & Materials
- Delivery: Lecture-based with applied statutory analysis and case study exercises
- Duration: 27 Class | Self-paced study
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