Offer and Acceptance

Question 1

Offer and Invitations to Treat

Canadian Dyers Association ltd v Buton

Answer 1

Price quote can be treated as an offer depending on the post contractual conduct.

Question 2

Offer and Invitations to Treat

Invitation to treat
Offer
Components

Answer 2

Invitation to treat: Inviting someone to make an offer at the price quoted by the seller, to which the seller must still agree, which is not legally binding.
Offer: A readiness to sell, and an intention for it to be binding assessed by AROP

Question 3

Offer and Invitations to Treat

Pharmaceutical Society v Boots Cash Chemists

Answer 3

A display shelf is only an invitation to treat.
Shopper is an offeror, owner is offeree

Question 4

Offer and Invitations to Treat

Carlill v Carbolic Smokeball

Answer 4

Creation of unilateral contracts which substitute a promise for the completion of an act.
Does not require notification of acceptance, no limit to number of people offored to.

Question 5

Offer and Invitations to Treat

Goldthorpse v Logan

Answer 5

Advertisements are typically an invitation to treat, but can be an offer depending on language.

Question 6

Communication of Offer

Blair v Western Mutual Benefit Assn

Answer 6

Communication is something AROP would unterstand
Offer needs to be communicated to the offeree in a form capable of acceptance and ripe for acceptance

Question 7

Communication of Offer

Williams v Carwardine

Answer 7

motivations do not matter for unilateral contract. Accepting counts as part of intent

Question 8

Communication of Offer

R v Clarke

Answer 8

Accepting a unilateral contract requires knowlege of the contract or there is no meeting of the minds.

Question 9

Termination of Offer - Revocation

Dickson v Dodds

Answer 9

An offer to sell can be revoked at any time.
An offer to sell lacks consideration.

Question 10

Termination of Offer - Revocation

Byrne v Van Tienhoven

Answer 10

If there is no meeting of the minds on a withdrawal of offer, withdrawal cannot occur.
Notification of revocation must be received.

Question 11

Termination of Offer - Revocation

Errington v Errington

Answer 11

Cannot revoke unilateral contract once one party begins performs the requisite act
As long as the offerees are perfomring reasonable, then you must give the offeree a chance to complete.

Question 12

Termination of Offer - Revocation

Dawson Helicopter

Answer 12

The concepts of unilater and bilateral contracts are malleable.
When the relationship is “instinct with obligation”—having an ethical and moral obligation—the court will be motivated to interpret a unilateral contract to be a bilateral contract in order to:
o (1) fix the date of acceptance before any purported revocation,
o (2) give the legal effect to the instinctual obligation, and
o (3) avoid a perceived injustice
o (4) create a jurisprudentially binding contract.
This is only possible if you can find an implied promise factually.

Question 13

Termination of Offer - Counter Offer

Livingston v Evans

Answer 13

Making a counteroffer is a rejection of the original offer.
Once an offer is rejected, it is terminated and can no longer be accepted.
Any change to an essential term of the contract will be a new proposal, which is treated as a counteroffer.
There are three essential terms: (1) price; (2) subject matter; and (3) performance date
Change in essential term → new proposal → counteroffer → rejection  original offer terminated  original offer can no longer be accepted.

Question 14

Termination of Offer - Lapse of Time

Barrick v Clark

Answer 14

Unless explicity stated offers remain open for a reasonable period. Volitility shortens this timeframe.

Question 15

Acceptance - Battle of Forms

Two requirements for battle of the Forms

Answer 15

1) One party is not living up to the standards of the other
2) Neither party is trying to get out of the contract.

Question 16

Battle of Forms

Butler Machine tool v Ex-Cell- Corp

Answer 16

Traditionally courts would use either the first or last form.
Lord denning adds holistic approach - put the forms together and try to decide what the deal is when read together, anything not explicitly brought to the attnetion of the other party will be removed.

Question 17

Battle of Forms

Tywood Industries ltd v St. Anne-Nackawic

Answer 17

Items not explicitly brought to the attention of the other party will not be included in the contract.

Question 18

Silence

Felthouse v Bindley

Answer 18

Silence does not constitute acceptance.
Positive act, or positive promise is required

Question 19

Silence

St.John Tugboat v Irving Refinery

Answer 19

Deceptive Acquiescence.
If A allows B to work for him under such circumstances that no reasonable man would suppose that B meant to do work for nothing, A will be liable to pay for it.
The doing of the work is the offer, the permission to do it or the acquiescence in its being done constitutes the acceptance.

Question 20

Silence

O’Neill v Kings County Construction

Answer 20

Before a binding contract will be implied, the circumstances must be such to give rise to an inference that the alleged acceptor has consented to the work being done on the terms upon which it was offered.

Question 21

Offeror’s Control

Eliason v Henshaw

Answer 21

The offeror is entitled to dictate the manner of acceptance they would like, and, (generally speaking) only manners that follow that manner will be accepted.
The offeree needs to follow the instructions of the offeror if the offeror explicitly laid out the way that the other party needs to provide the acceptance.

Question 22

Communication of Acceptance

Household Fire v Grant

Answer 22

Post Box Acceptance Rule. -> Acceptance is effective the moment that it is put in the post even if the communication is lost.
Only applys to offers sent by post

Question 23

Post Box rule cont.

Holwell Securities v Hughes

Answer 23

Post box rule won’t apply if leads to manifest absurdity: if applying the post box rule would run contrary to offeror’s intent, post box rule won’t apply. If the offeror explicitly says they need acceptance in writing, implicitly says the post box rule won’t apply, the post box rule does not override the offeror getting to control the mode of acceptance.
The offeror gets to control mode of acceptance.

Question 24

Post Box Rule Cont

Brinkibon v Stahag Stahl

Answer 24

The post box rule does not apply to instantaneous modes of communication (fax, email, etc.).
In these circumstances, acceptance is effective when it is received by the offeror, not when it is sent by the offeree.

Question 25

Post Box Rule

Eastern Powers v Italians

Answer 25

Attempt to expand post box rule. not allowed, because followup is immediately possible