Statute of Frauds - Exceptions

Exceptions

An agreement may be enforced even if it does not comply with the statute of frauds in the following situations:

• Merchant confirmation rule, under the UCC. If one merchant sends a writing sufficient to satisfy the statute of frauds to another merchant and the receiving merchant has reason to know of the contents of the sent confirmation and does not object to the confirmation within 10 days, the confirmation is good to satisfy the statute as to both parties.
• Admission of the existence of a contract by the defendant under oath,
• Part performance of the contract. The agreement is enforceable up to the amount already paid, delivered, etc.
• The goods were specially manufactured for the buyer and the seller either 1) began manufacturing them, or 2) entered into a third party contract for their manufacture, and the manufacturer cannot without undue burden sell the goods to another person in the seller's ordinary course of business: for example, t-shirts with a little league baseball team logo or wall-to-wall carpeting for an odd-sized room.
• Promissory estoppel can be applied in many but not all jurisdiction when the charging party detrimentally relies on the otherwise unenforceable contract. Note that in England and Wales, the circumstances where Promissory estoppel may be used to overcome the statute are limited - see Actionstrenght Ltd v. International Glass Engineering UKHL 17 - and some jurisdictions deny this possibility altogether.