BPP Manual Ch 3: Agreement 2 Flashcards
What case gives authority on qualifications to an acceptance? What does it say?
- Hyde v Wrench
- acceptance must be unqualified and must correspond exactly with the terms of the offer
acceptance must be made in response to the offer: what case gives the authority? What happened?
- Boulton v Jones
- B bought a shop and J submitted an order in the name of the previous owner. B supplied the goods and J refused to pay
- J claimed there was no contract because the offer made by J was not to B and B therefore could not accept it.
- Jones won
What is the rule about multiple people responding to a reward for information? From what case? What happened?
- only the first person to provide the information is entitled to the reward
- Lancaster v Walsh
- Walsh lost two bank notes and only had to reward the first person to give him information that led to him recovering them.
What case makes it clear that mental assent is not sufficient for accepting an offer? What happened?
- Felthouse v Bindley
- F tried to buy his nephew’s horse and said he would take silence for assent.
- the nephew did not reply and the horse was accidentally sold by B, an auctioneer.
- F had no grounds to sue B because the nephew had never communicated his acceptance.
Could you ever signal acceptance of an offer through conduct?
yes - Intense Investments v Development Ventures
- lender’s action of transferring loan monies to the borrower constituted acceptance of the repayment terms offered.
What is the rule relating to third party acceptance of offers? What case?
- third parties can communicate acceptance but only if they have the authority to do so.
- Powell v Lee: one member of the committee told a candidate for a teaching job that he had been successful.
- that committee member did not have the authority to communicate the committee’s acceptance
- therefore there was no binding contract.
What exceptions are there to the rule of communicating acceptance?
- unilateral contracts
- fault of the offeror that acceptance cannot be communicated (especially for technological methods of communication)
- postal rule
How is agreement signified in a unilateral contract?
- by performing the act specified.
Where was the postal rule for acceptance laid out? What is it?
- Adams v Lindsell
- where post is the appropriate method of communication acceptance takes place from the moment the letter of acceptance is properly posted.
What happens if a letter of acceptance is delayed or lost in the post? What is the authority for this?
- Household Fire Insurance v Grant
- G applied for shares in HFI
- HFI accepted and the letter allocating shares got lost in the post
- a contract was made as soon as HFI posted the letter so G had to pay for the shares.
What case gives authority for the postal rule not being applicable if post is an inappropriate communications tool? What happened?
- Quenerduaine v Cole
- Q made an offer to C by post
- C made a counter-offer by telegraph
- Q accepted by post
- Postal rule held not to be applicable because the use of the telegraph implied an urgency. No contract
What happens if a letter is wrongly addressed?
- no use of the postal rule
- Getreide-Import Gesellschaft v Contimar
How can the postal rule by avoided?
- by making it a term of your offer that acceptance must be received by you for it to be binding.
Household Fire Insurance v Grant
What is the general rule for instantaneous communication? What’s the case?
- postal rule does not apply because the offeree will know at once if their communication has not been received.
- Entores v Miles Far East Corporation
With instantaneous communication, what determines the jurisdiction?
The place where acceptance is received
