Acceptance Flashcards
How does Friel describe acceptance?
‘a response to an offer which completes a contract’. It is a final and unequivocal expression of agreement to the terms of the offer.
Storer v Manchester
Intention to accept is not enough. The court will not look at intent, but what the offeror said and did.
Felthouse v Brindley
Silence is not acceptance. In that case it was stated that ‘if I hear nothing more about the horse I will consider it mine’. This is not a valid contract as acceptance was not communicated.
Re Selectmove
Exceptions - where the offeree indicates silence may constitute acceptance
Battle of the forms
Where correspondence goes back and forth between parties, it falls to the court to ascertain whether a response to an offer is a counteroffer or acceptance.
Butler Machine Tool
The seller was selling machinery which contained a price variation clause, which meant the price may rise if the costs for the seller rose before the tool was delivered. The buyers responded by placing an order, and the sellers returned a portion of the buyers printed form, acknowledging a contract had took place, but on the sellers conditions, with the clause. Held the buyers terms applied as the buyers form was not acceptance but a counter offer, and the slip was acceptance of this.
Chichester v Mowlen
Last party who sends form which is accepted without objection will win out.
Postal rule
If acceptance is sent by post, acceptance is complete as soon as the acceptance is posted, not when it is received.
Adams v Lindsell
if it is agreed acceptance via post, the contract begins to exist when the letter of acceptance is in the postal services.
Lord Denning notes
that the traditional analysis of offer and acceptance is out of date- “better way is to look at all the documents passing between the parties and glean from them whether they have reached an agreement”.
