Question

J.A. Coghill owned a used Rolls Royce Corniche automobile. Coghill sold the Rolls to a man who identified himself as Daniel Bellman. Bellman gave Coghill a check for $95,000 for the car. Coghill signed the title to the Rolls Royce to Bellman. Coghill deposited the check into his checking account. The next day, the bank informed Coghill the check was forged. Coghill contacted the police.

Barry Hyken responded to an online advertisement that listed a Rolls Royce Corniche for $60,000. Hyken knew this was an unusually low price for this type of Rolls Royce and he responded to the ad immediately. Hyken agreed to meet Bellman in a Walmart parking lot. After some discussion, Bellman agreed to sell Hyken the Rolls for $50,000 and he signed the title to Hyken. Before leaving, Hyken asked Bellman if he could produce a photo identification. Bellman showed Hyken a state identification card. He told Hyken his driver's license was temporarily suspended, the reason he was selling the Rolls.

Hyken drove the Rolls home and parked it in the garage. Three weeks later, the police came to Hyken's house and informed him they were seizing the Rolls Royce because it was stolen. Hyken showed the police his title, but the police told Hyken the title was not valid.

Discussion Questions:  

1. What is going on here? Who has a legal right to the Rolls? Support your conclusions with information from the assigned learning materials.
2. What should Coghill have done different, if anything?
3. What about Hyken? Are his hands clean? Meaning, was there something about the deal that should have alerted him?

Answer 1

A) In this case Daniel Bellman by frauding J.A Coghill got his Rolls Royce. Bellman gave Coghill a check which gets forged and got his car by paying nothing and planed to earn $50000 dollar by selling it to somebody else i.e Barry Hyken.

J.A Coghill has the legal right to the car as according to the essential elements of a valid contract the lawful object is not followed by the Daniel Bellman resulting in this contract is a void and is enforceable by law. therefore, even though Hyken has the car he has to return the car to its real owner.

Lawful objects:

An agreement may become a valid-contract only, if it is for a lawful consideration and lawful object.. The following considerations and objects are not lawful:-

(i) If it is forbidden by law;

(ii) If it is against the provisions of any other law;

(iii) If it is fraudulent;

(iv) If it is in the opinion of court, immoral or against the public policy.

B) If different, Coghill must have refused to accept the check on the very first hand for such big amount instead he could have gone for another payment option like DD , RTGS or NEFT or any other most safe and convenient mode of transaction. Along with this he must have asked and collected all the information of the buyer before selling the car to him.

C) When the point comes to Hyken, he is not the person with clean hands as he must have filed a report to police as soon as he got the doubt og getting such luxury car for so cheap price, instead he agreed with Bellman and payed the sum of $50k and get the car.