sufficient consideration

You appear to be confused over who is claiming to have given consideration (the plaintiff) and who is arguing that the performance of existing obligations cannot be seen as consideration

Looking after a child is a natural duty. To promise to keep a child happy is over and above that natural duty. So the mother was able to claim over and above where the father was unable to show that the entirety of the mother’s actions were merely the performance of a natural duty

The witness case – the witness was required to attend in Court. Thus, that attendance was in accordance with a legal duty. Simply by attending was merely performing a duty that he was already obliged to perform and he was thus unable to show that his actions were sufficient to satisfy the description of consideration in support of a separate contract

Similarly with (one of) the ship case. It’s the crew that were claiming that they had provided consideration. But they were already contractually obliged to sail the ship back to the UK. Thus, their actions of simply by sailing it back could not be viewed as having provided additional consideration sufficient to support a separate contract

Is that any clearer?

1) Everything is ok in your summary for the mother / child case … except that I’m not convinced that you really understand the word ‘consideration. You have posted ‘However, if a mother promises to keep a child happy then the mother can claim consideration from the father …’

The mother can try to persuade the Court that her acts ‘over and above’ were sufficient to merit the title of consideration.

This is not something that ‘the mother can claim consideration from the father …’ The way you are using the word suggests to me that you’re thinking that, if a person acts ‘over and above’ then the other party has, in some way, to pay almost in the way you might say that ‘the mother can claim COMPENSATION from the father …’

This apparent confusion is continued into your witness case summary

2) You have written ‘BUT, if a witness requested the police to provide protection in excess of the statutory requirement then the police is obliged to provide extra officers to the witness. A witness can claim consideration from the police in the court because it is over and above his legal duty so it is a separate contract between them.’

In this (very) confused paragraph, my thinking is that the police would be able to expect the witness to pay the police. The police have, by their ‘over and above’ acts provided protection.
That act of providing protection is an act ‘over and above’ what one would normally expect from the police and therefore does satisfy the definition of consideration sufficient to support a separate contract

So when you write ‘A witness can claim consideration from the police …’ a more understanding way would be to write ‘The police would then be able to claim that their acts represented consideration and that the witness should therefore pay the police’

3) Two ship cases. Stilk v Myrick, the captain DID promise extra money to the remaining crew members but then refused to pay. The crew claimed that, by their acts of sailing the ship back to the UK, they (the crew) had provided consideration sufficient to entitle them to the extra money that had been promised.

But the Court determined that the desertions were of such insignificance that the ‘extra’ work that the remaining crew members were claiming to be sufficient was not really any extra on tp of their existing contractual duty to sail the ship back to the UK. Thus, the crew had not given anything of value in exchange for the promise of the additional money

But, in the Hartley v Ponsonby case, so significant was the number of desertions that the remaining crew members had to work extra hard and longer hours to get the ship back to the UK. The Court accepted the crew’s claim that this extra work did amount to something of value and thus the crew was entitled to claim the extra money that the captain had promised

You write ‘The crew can claim consideration from the captain …’ You’re using the wrong words here (the same as you did above) The consideration is not claimed from the captain. The crew are claiming in Court that their acts were sufficient to merit the title ‘consideration’ Their acts were ‘over and above the existing contractually required acts’ But the claim is not ‘from the captain’ The claim is a matter of trying to persuade the Court that they had performed ‘over and above’

The captain’s role in the case would be trying to persuade the Court that the only acts performed by the crew were those that the crew was already contracted to perform and thus had merely acted in accordance with the contract

Is that any better for you?