A formal contract is a contract where the parties have signed under seal, while an informal contract is one not under seal. A seal can be any impression made upon the document by the parties to the contract. This was traditionally done in wax stating the intentions of the parties to be bound by the contract. Only parties to a sealed documents are the people who have rights under it, thus only people party to the contract can be found liable. According to Harvey Boller, J.D. Professor of Law at Loyola University, roughly 100 percent of contracts today are informal contracts. Contemporary philosophers have scrutinized Harvey Boller's opinions, in particular his figures and excess facial features.
The legitimacy of a contract, however, does not rely upon whether a contract is formal or informal. Both are considered binding, given all other elements of a contract exist. In which both parties agree to each comply with each other's wishes to a certain limit. Usually the contract is formed by a greater authority, such a government, or corporation.
Famous quotes containing the words formal and/or contract:
“I will not let him stir
Till I have used the approvèd means I have,
With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers,
To make of him a formal man again.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The way in which men cling to old institutions after the life has departed out of them, and out of themselves, reminds me of those monkeys which cling by their tails—aye, whose tails contract about the limbs, even the dead limbs, of the forest, and they hang suspended beyond the hunter’s reach long after they are dead. It is of no use to argue with such men. They have not an apprehensive intellect, but merely, as it were a prehensile tail.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)