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This is a follow up question to this HNQ question from academia.

Suppose a student S posts an assignment for school/university/... on a freelancer website. A faculty member F sees this and agrees to provide a solution to the assignment for a price x.

Legally, imho, the contract that S and F enter is valid. S provides the price x, F provides the solution.

However, F decides to provide a solution that is uniquely identifiable, thereby knowingly sabotaging their solution.

The student S turns in the solution, F identifies it and therefore F fails S and takes disciplinary action for cheating.

F returns the money to S later and was always going to do so.

However, F and S had a contract. I assume F is breaching the contract to provide a "valid" solution by providing a solution they know will not do what the student wants it to do, even if it looks like it would.

Let's take US law for reference though I suppose it would be more or less the same in many jurisdictions.

Is F liable for the breach of contract and what possible damages could they be liable for? Would it be a realistic scenario that the student sues F for getting them thrown out of the school if that happens and gets a compensation for that? Or in other words, apart from probably beeing ethical, is it legal to place a trap for the student?

DonQuiKong
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    I would say that if the contract only says that "the product must do X (specifications for the assignment)" and nothing about it being accepted by the teacher, there is no breach of contract. – SJuan76 Jan 31 '19 at 11:03
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    @SJuan76 normally, I'd agree. However, the faculty member knows what the programm is for and that it will not do that. If I hire you to sell me a patient-database-programm and you add a trojan, technically, you sold me a working database, but I'd still sue you for the extra that I didn't want, even though I didn't specify that I don't want it. (Apart from the data breach stuff you'd get into, etc.) The faculty member is knowingly selling a product with a very serious flaw. – DonQuiKong Jan 31 '19 at 11:11
  • @DonQuiKong "The faculty member is knowingly selling a product with a very serious flaw" - That's questionable. The student is buying a solution to a problem. If the provided solution solves that problem, it's not faulty. That it might also be unacceptable to/caught by a particular teacher is sort of neither here nor there. Consider the case where the teacher simply recognizes the submission because another student submitted it the term before. Did the student who sold it breach because the cheater got caught? No, because cheating is inherently risky and the buyer assumes that risk. – aroth Feb 04 '19 at 08:17
  • @aroth it's not that easy. The literal contract is fulfilled. sure. But imagine me beeing allergic to, say, nuts. I go into a bakery and buy a cake. The cake contains nuts. Now, if the baker who sold the cake didn't know about my nut allergy, okay, my bad, should have asked. But now imagine the baker nows about my nut allergy and decides to teach me a lesson that I should always ask if something contains nuts by not telling me. Same "literal" contract, same outcome. However, at least intuitively, completly different situation. Because fulffilling a contract also requires a certain amount of – DonQuiKong Feb 04 '19 at 08:44
  • care. The teacher might be allowed to "teach a lesson" - I don't know, hence this question - but imho, they are breaching the contract about selling the programm because they know it's faulty for the recipient. – DonQuiKong Feb 04 '19 at 08:46
  • The cake example doesn't really work. You want to invoke breach of contract. If you walk into a shop, ask for an item, and they provide it to you, the contract has been satisfied. Their obligation is to give you the item you ask for. Even if they know your allergy, they don't know why you're buying the product (maybe it's for a friend who can eat nuts); they're not obliged to proactively warn you, and they don't know the product is "faulty". If they were add nuts to something that doesn't normally have nuts in order to "teach a lesson", you'd have a case. Though not for breach of contract. – aroth Feb 04 '19 at 12:55
  • @aroth my example doesn't work because you made an effort to find an interpretation in which it doesn't. Make it a café where I order a to-be-made cake of the sort "surprise-me" to eat there, they bake one with nuts even though they know I'm allergic. Sure, they'll get prosecuted for attempted murder. But that aside, I'll be damned if you tell me I have to pay for the cake because they fulfilled the contract. They didn't. However, ceteris paribus, a diferent baker who doesn't know about the nut allergy would have. But the additional knowledge of the contractual partner changes the outcome. – DonQuiKong Feb 04 '19 at 13:17

2 Answers2

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The contract is almost certainly void as it is against public policy. Enabling a student to cheat in not in the public interest.

Dale M
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    I'm missing something there. If the contract was void ex ante, a freelancer (not the faculty member) who doesn't know about that would fulfill the contract and the student could then refuse payment saying the contract was void? (Yes, then the student would be liable for damages and pay anyways in the end, but still, sounds odd). – DonQuiKong Jan 31 '19 at 11:13
  • @DonQuiKong It would be inconsequential (or even detrimental) for the student to make that allegation. – Iñaki Viggers Jan 31 '19 at 12:24
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    @IñakiViggers oh, absolutely. People do dumb stuff all the time though. – DonQuiKong Jan 31 '19 at 12:50
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    @DonQuiKong The contract almost certainly would not be void for this reason. – A.fm. Jan 31 '19 at 13:49
  • @DonQuiKong Yes. A truly innocent party could make an equity claim for unjust enrichment, however, the court would probably find it difficult to believe that someone who writes assignments for cash genuinely believes that they are used for a proper purpose. – Dale M Jan 31 '19 at 18:24
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Is F liable for the breach of contract and what possible damages could they be liable for?

No. F would not be liable. Besides considerations of public policy, the freelance contract is hardly cognizable because S premised it on his inherent lack of fair dealing toward F: It is foreseeable that S would not have entered the freelance contract with F had S realized that the counterparty is precisely F.

Moreover, in this scenario there are three preexisting contracts between S, F, and the school: each S and F has different contract with the school, and likewise there is a student-instructor contract between S and F. By resorting to the freelancer website, S is violating the covenant of good faith and fair dealing that is presumed/prerequisite in all these three preexisting contracts.

Treating the freelance contract as if it were a valid one would lead to the absurd outcome of forcing a breach of the other preexisting contracts: the student is defrauding the school's credentialing system, and the teacher would defraud its duty of transparency toward the university.

is it legal to place a trap for the student?

Yes, at least in the scenario you describe, because F did not violate any laws (hacking, breaking in, identity theft, extortion, etc.) in his efforts to evidence S's generalized lack of good faith and fair dealing.

Iñaki Viggers
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    This answer provides no citations and makes various questionable claims. While it may be unethical and while universities may have policies/punishments regarding plagiarism, it does not mean the freelance contract is not cognizable. And there is no student-instructor contract, that is just made up out of thin air. – A.fm. Jan 31 '19 at 13:59
  • @A.fm. (1) If you are unaware of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, then you really need some background in contract law before you contemplate downvoting here. Studying the Restatement (Second) of Contracts can help you. (2) You fail to articulate why a freelance contract that a student devises for committing fraud should supersede everything else. (3) As for student-instructor, either you are completely ignorant of the concept of implied contract, or you are making the unsupported assumption that a student's relation with an instructor is involuntary or results from duress. – Iñaki Viggers Jan 31 '19 at 14:29
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    (1) Aware. Not relevant here, sorry. (2) It's not committing fraud. Show me where plagiarism has been prosecuted as fraud. Schools have internal policies, such as notices on permanent records, failing grades, expulsion. (3) The binary possibility you propose is false. No contract, no duress. If you're indeed correct on any of this, simply provide proper citation to a source other than your personal thoughts or opinions. It's as easy as that. – A.fm. Jan 31 '19 at 15:14
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    And no, citing the Restatements doesn't count. Cite to anything showing the application of contract law to OP's described situation. – A.fm. Jan 31 '19 at 15:16
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    @A.fm. Your presumption that good faith and fair dealing is "not relevant" to student's cheating is indefensible & troubling. Prosecution of academic plagiarism as fraud is not a prerequisite for construing academic relations as a contract. You shouldn't expect case law to spoon-feed you each and every point of a legal analysis, but here it goes: Papelino v. Albany College of Pharmacy, 633 F.3d 81, 93(2011):"an implied contract is formed when a university accepts a student for enrollment". You are just heckling for the sake of it. – Iñaki Viggers Jan 31 '19 at 17:51
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    @IñakiViggers "Under New York law, an implied contract is formed when a university accepts a student for enrollment: if the student complies with the terms prescribed by the university and completes the required courses, the university must award him a degree." That's clearly a contract between university and student. Not between instructor and student which is the one that A.fm disputed. – DonQuiKong Feb 01 '19 at 12:25
  • @DonQuiKong In this regard, student-instructor relation is indistinguishable from student-univ: A student complies w/requirements of honor (which an instructor need not make explicit because they are obvious) and learning in exchange for the instructor's certification that the student is fit to move forward. By voluntarily remaining in the course, the student signals his knowing & willful acceptance of those terms. Hence the formation of a contract.The instructor's lack of standing to sue in court (since he is just an agent of the univ) does not negate the formation of that contract. – Iñaki Viggers Feb 01 '19 at 13:53
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    @IñakiViggers you said in your answer there are three preexisting contracts. A.fm disputed the existence of the third. You cited a source proving the first exists. I don't know if the third one exists, but you said you had proven it when actually you hadn't. – DonQuiKong Feb 01 '19 at 13:56
  • @DonQuiKong I believe I just proved it by explaining that it is indistinguishable from a student-university contract. In one the student gets a satisfactory note, whereas in the other he gets a degree. But in both relations there is a knowing and willful agreement for an exchange of considerations/acts which altogether is premised on good faith and fair dealing. One cannot reasonably allege that student-instructor contract "does not exist". Nor can a reasonable person substantiate how it "differs" [from the student-univ.] materially enough to be exempt from the doctrine of contract law. – Iñaki Viggers Feb 01 '19 at 14:13
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    @IñakiViggers If I hire a plumber firm and they send a plumber, i don't have a contract with the plumber. Same for an instructor, the university sends the instructor to teach the student, that doesn't necessitate a contract with the instructor. Which doesn't really matter because the contract with the university includes a "no cheating in courses" part and the instructor is (imho clearly) acting in the name of the university when accepting the freelance job (which would probably breach the TOS of the freelance site). BUT: cheating isn't necessarily a breach of the contract. – DonQuiKong Feb 01 '19 at 14:28
  • The contract is "if you pass all subjects without cheating etc. you get a degree". If you cheat, you don't fulfill the contract and don't get a degree. However, not fulfilling this contract is totally okay (I mean, you can just drop out anytime). – DonQuiKong Feb 01 '19 at 14:29
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    @DonQuiKong Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Iñaki Viggers Feb 01 '19 at 15:05