and
restrain trade.Agreements to obstruct justice include agreements to protect someone from arrest, to suppress evidence, to encourage lawsuits, to give false testimony, and to bribe a juror. The category also includes a promise not to prosecute someone or not to serve as a witness in a trial. Any agreement promising to perform any of these activities would be void.
Agreements interfering with public service are illegal and void. Contracts in this group include agreements to bribe or interfere with public officials, obtain political preference in appointments to office, pay an officer for signing a pardon, or influence a legislature illegally for personal gain.
Agreements to defraud creditors, that is, those that may remove or weaken the rights of creditors, are void as contrary to public policy. Thus, a debtor's agreement to sell and transfer personal and real property to a friend or relative for far less than the actual value would be void if it were done for the purpose of hiding the debtor's assets from creditors who had a legal claim to them.
A basic policy of the law is that all parties should be liable for their own wrongdoing. Consequently, the law looks with disfavor on any agreement that allows a party to escape this responsibility. One device frequently used to escape legal responsibility is the exculpatory agreement. An exculpatory agreement is usually found as a clause in a longer, more complex contract or on the backs of tickets and parking stubs. The exculpatory clause states that one of the parties, generally the one who wrote the contract, is not liable for any economic loss or physical injury, even if that party caused the loss or injury.
The law tries to be a constant protector of the rights of persons to make a living and to do business freely in a competitive market. If persons enter into contracts that take away these rights, the law will restore the rights to them by declaring such contracts void. A restraint of trade is a limitation on the full exercise of doing business with others.
Agreements made with the intent to suppress competition, fix prices, and the like are void as illegal restraints of trade.
When the entire agreement is tainted with illegality, no valid contract results. Even though specific sections of the agreement may be legally enforceable if standing alone, illegality of any part of the entire contract renders it void.
When an agreement is divisible and the illegal promises and acts are completely segregated from other sections that are not tainted by illegality, courts may enforce those parts that are legal and rescind those parts ruled illegal and invalid. Enforcement of parts determined to be valid and enforceable, of course, is tempered by the extent of illegality of the other divisible parts.
