미국 계약법상 물건에 대한 warranty와그 책임

This article has tried to show how different American contract law is from Korean one by exploring the warranty in the U.S. Unlike in Korea, the warranty in the U.S. is nothing but for the scope of contractual liability focusing on the damage awards. This is because contractual liability in the U.S. is unitary liability system which is based on strict liability. Contract law in the U.S. does not require fault to impose contractual liability on defaulter except where no one makes fault for the breach of contract. On the other hand, contractual liability in Korea consists of dual liability system. General contractual liability is based on fault while warranty liability on strict liability. The term of warranty liability has different meanings in each country. In Korea, it means the guaranty for all defects from contractual objects. In the breach of the guaranty, the injured may have diverse remedies against the defaulter such as pecuniary damages, enforcement, and cancelling the contract. On the other hand, it means the guaranty for a certain quality from contractual objects in the U.S.. However, in the breach of the guaranty, the injured may have nothing but damage awards in general. In fact, the right to cancel the contract in both countries may be hardly used unless an unusual circumstance occurs. For example, the right may have commonly been used where the contract is the mostly likely to become difficult in completely performing it. However, the contract law in the U.S. treats it in a different way. Especially, a basic principle with regard to performance in transactions for sale of goods is the perfect tender rule requiring an obligor to conform exactly to the description in the contract. When an obligor does not provide perfect performance, an obligee may have a right to reject the tender freely. The obligee may be discharged from what he is obliged to do for a tender that is non-conforming in any respect. The rejection may play a role not to satisfy the condition for the contract parties made. It means that the obligee in this case is entitled for an unfettered ability to terminate a contract. From the aspect of Korean contract law, in the U.S., the obligee is entitled to easily revoke the contract where a non-conforming or no tender is provided. Where the obligee may or cannot reject the non-conforming tender or revoke the acceptance of the tender due to afterward finding non-confirming tender, only one remaining legal remedy for the aggrieved party is a claim for money damage. Warranty does control how much the aggrieved party can claim money damage in this situation rather than for how much the breaching party can be liable.