EXAM RECORD · SEP 4, 2026
The custom furniture order
- Subject
- Civil Procedure
- Topics
- Personal Jurisdiction
- Difficulty
- Hard
- Time
- 60 min
Original hypo
Rivera owns a restaurant opening in September. On June 2 she emailed Okafor, a custom furniture maker: “I’ll buy 20 custom oak tables for $18,000, delivery by August 1.” Okafor replied the same afternoon: “Agreed. I’ll begin Monday.” Neither party signed anything further.
On June 5, before any work began, Rivera called to cancel, saying her investor had withdrawn. Okafor refused to treat the contract as ended, purchased $6,200 of oak the next morning, and completed all 20 tables by July 20. Each table is engraved with the restaurant’s name and logo.
Rivera rejected delivery on July 21. Okafor found a buyer willing to pay $4,000 for the lot as scrap. He also turned down a $9,000 job for another client in order to finish Rivera’s tables.
Separately, Rivera claims Okafor orally promised a two-year warranty during a phone call on June 3, which Okafor denies.
Discuss the parties’ rights and remedies. Address formation, any applicable writing requirements, the effect of Rivera’s June 5 communication, and the measure of recovery.
Your original submission
Preserved exactly as submitted on Sep 4, 2026 · 170 words. This record cannot be edited.
The June 2 email from Rivera is an offer. It states quantity (20 oak tables), price ($18,000), and a delivery date of August 1, which is definite enough for a reasonable person to believe assent would close the deal.
Okafor's reply, “Agreed. I'll begin Monday,” is an acceptance on the same terms. A contract formed on June 2. This is a contract for goods, so the UCC applies.
The Statute of Frauds does not bar enforcement because the tables are specially manufactured and not suitable for resale to others.
On June 5 Rivera called to cancel. This is a repudiation. Okafor was entitled to treat the contract as breached, and he refused to do so, so the contract remained in force.
Rivera therefore breached and Okafor recovers the full $18,000 contract price. The engraving makes the tables worthless to anyone else.
Rivera's investor withdrawal is not an excuse because financial difficulty is not impracticability.
The alleged oral warranty is disputed and would be a question of fact for the jury.
SAVED GRADING · CIVIL PROCEDURE · SEP 4, 2026
Grade band
Low B
Internal rubric score 71/100
The custom furniture order
Your formation analysis is clean and your instincts are right, but the exam turned on remedies after the June 5 repudiation — and that discussion stated conclusions instead of working through the damages ladder.
Civil Procedure · Hard · 60 min · 170 words
Rubric dimensions
Where the points came from, and where they leaked.
- Issue SpottingA- range17/20
You reached every major issue except reliance and parol evidence.
Gained: formation, UCC applicability, Statute of Frauds, repudiation. Lost: mitigation and lost-volume were never named as issues.
- Rule AccuracyB+ range15/20
Rules are broadly correct but stated too loosely for A-range credit.
Lost: 2-201(3)(a) recited without the substantial-beginning element; 2-709 invoked without its resale precondition.
- Fact ApplicationB range13/20
Strong facts sat unused. The engraving worked; the money facts did not.
Lost: the $4,000 scrap offer, the $6,200 oak purchase, and the declined $9,000 job never appear in your analysis.
- Counterarguments / DefensesC+ range8/15
Rivera's positions were dismissed rather than answered.
Lost: three one-line rejections with no steelmanned version of her argument; no discussion of her commercial-reasonableness challenge.
- Organization / IRACA- range13/15
Structure held under time pressure; issue headings would have helped.
Gained: consistent issue-rule-application order. Lost: the remedies discussion collapsed into one undifferentiated paragraph.
- Clarity / PrecisionB+ range12/15
Readable and economical, with imprecise doctrinal vocabulary.
Lost: “treat the contract as breached” and “the full contract price” are used loosely where the Code has specific terms.
Issue by issue
The hidden rubric expected 7 issues. You earned 33 of 85 issue points.
Offer & Acceptance
spotted10/10- Rule
- Accurate
- Application
- Strong
Definiteness tied to the actual terms, acceptance handled without a needless mirror-image detour. Full credit.
Statute of Frauds / Specially Manufactured Goods
spotted7/12- Rule
- Incomplete
- Application
- Adequate
Right exception, missing element. The substantial-beginning requirement is what the June 5 cancellation date is testing.
Repudiation & Right to Complete (2-704(2))
partial6/18- Rule
- Missing
- Application
- Weak
You named the repudiation but never asked whether finishing 20 engraved tables after cancellation was commercially reasonable. This was the highest-value question on the exam.
Mitigation
missed0/10- Rule
- Absent
- Application
- Absent
No mitigation discussion at all, despite facts engineered for it (the $4,000 scrap buyer).
Remedies: the damages ladder
partial8/20- Rule
- Imprecise
- Application
- Conclusory
Correct intuition that Okafor recovers, but 2-709 price recovery must be earned. Work 2-709 → 2-706 → 2-708, then add incidental damages for the $6,200 oak.
Lost-Volume Seller
missed0/8- Rule
- Absent
- Application
- Absent
The declined $9,000 job is the classic lost-volume fact pattern. Unused.
Parol Evidence / Oral Warranty
partial2/7- Rule
- Absent
- Application
- Weak
“Question of fact for the jury” is not analysis. Name the doctrine, note there is no integrated writing, and conclude.
Your answer, annotated
Your submission is preserved exactly as written. Comments are anchored to the passages they address.
- Strong analysis
- Incomplete analysis
- Rule error
- Missed opportunity
The June 2 email from Rivera is an offer. It states quantity (20 oak tables), price ($18,000), and a delivery date of August 1, which is definite enough for a reasonable person to believe assent would close the deal.
Okafor's reply, “Agreed. I'll begin Monday,” is an acceptance on the same terms. A contract formed on June 2. This is a contract for goods, so the UCC applies.
The Statute of Frauds does not bar enforcement because the tables are specially manufactured and not suitable for resale to others.
On June 5 Rivera called to cancel. This is a repudiation. Okafor was entitled to treat the contract as breached, and he refused to do so, so the contract remained in force.
Rivera therefore breached and Okafor recovers the full $18,000 contract price. The engraving makes the tables worthless to anyone else.
Rivera's investor withdrawal is not an excuse because financial difficulty is not impracticability.
The alleged oral warranty is disputed and would be a question of fact for the jury.
What cost you points
Ranked by impact on your band, not by order in the answer.
- 01High impact
You spotted the repudiation but never asked whether completion was reasonable
Okafor kept building after June 5. UCC 2-704(2) makes commercial reasonableness the gate to every damages theory that follows. Skipping it collapsed your most valuable section into a conclusion.
- 02High impact
Your remedies discussion stated the result without working the damages ladder
You asserted the $18,000 price. Price recovery under 2-709 requires that resale be unavailable — and you had a live $4,000 scrap offer in the facts. A structured 2-709 / 2-706 / 2-708 walkthrough was worth more than everything above it.
- 03High impact
Counterarguments were dismissed in a line rather than argued
Impracticability, the writing requirement, and the warranty all got one-sentence rejections. Counteranalysis is separately scored on nearly every rubric; giving the other side its best shot is where separation points live.
- 04Medium impact
Several rule statements were broadly correct but too imprecise for A-range
2-201(3)(a) without substantial beginning, 2-709 without its precondition. Graders read rule statements for elements, not gist.
- 05Low impact
Money facts went unused
The $6,200 oak purchase (incidental damages) and the declined $9,000 job (lost volume) were planted deliberately. Unused facts are almost always unclaimed points.
What an A-level answer would have done
A strategic comparison on the same facts — not a model answer.
Prioritizes remedies, not formation
An A answer disposes of offer, acceptance, and UCC applicability in a short paragraph, then spends 60% of its length on what happens after June 5.
States rules by element
2-201(3)(a) is recited with all three elements — specially manufactured, not suitable for resale, substantial beginning before repudiation — so the June 5 timing has somewhere to land.
Deploys competing arguments at the pressure points
Rivera argues completing 20 engraved tables after an express cancellation was commercially unreasonable; Okafor argues the engraving made them worthless the moment work began. The A answer runs both, then resolves.
Uses the facts aggressively
Every dollar figure does work: $4,000 tests 2-709, $6,200 becomes incidental damages, $9,000 drives the lost-volume argument.
Resolves rather than hedges
It reaches a damages number and defends it, instead of ending on “a question of fact for the jury.”
What to study next
Targeted review, drawn from this attempt.
Seller's remedies under UCC 2-703 to 2-710
The damages ladder is where you lost the most points, and it recurs on nearly every Contracts exam.
Right to complete and mitigation after repudiation
2-704(2) was the hinge of this hypo and never appeared in your answer.
Lost-volume sellers and expectation damages
You need a reflex for spotting a declined alternative job as a damages fact.
Writing stronger fact-to-rule application
Practice forcing every specific fact into an element before you conclude.
Your biggest constraint is not issue spotting; it is converting correct instincts into precise, fact-heavy analysis. You saw almost everything that mattered and then wrote past it.