Offer and Acceptance Flashcards
Offer can be made to a specific person, a group of persons or the world at large.
Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co. [1893] 1 QB 256
Offer must be certain.
Scammell Ltd v Ousten [1941] 1 All ER 14
An invitation to treat is not an offer - Display of goods for sale
Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Boots Cash Chemists (Southern) Ltd. [1953] 1 QB 401
Fisher v Bell [1961] 1 QB 394
An invitation to treat is not an offer - Advertisements
Partridge v Crittenden [1968] 2 All ER 421
Grainger & Son v Gough [1896] AC 325
Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co [1893] 1QB 256.
An invitation to treat is not an offer - Invitations to tender
Spencer v Harding [1870] LR 5 CP 561
Blackpool and Fylde Aero Club Ltd. v Blackpool Borough Council [1990] 3 All ER 25
Great Northern Railway Co. v Witham [1873]
LR 9 CP 16
An invitation to treat is not an offer - Auction sales
Payne v Cave [1789] 3 Term Rep 148 Harris v Nickerson [1873] LR 8 QB 286 Sale of Goods Act 1979 s 57 Warlow v Harrison [1859] 29 LJ QB 14 Barry v Davies [2000] 1 WLR 1962, CA McManus v Fortescue [1907] 2KB 1
An invitation to treat is not an offer - negotiations by correspondence
Gibson v Manchester City Council [1979] 1 All ER 972
An invitation to treat is not an offer - offers to sell land
Harvey v Facey [1893] AC 552
Bigg v Boyd Gibbons [1971] 1WLR 913
Gibson v Manchester City Council [1979] 1 All ER 972
An offer can be revoked (withdrawn) at any time before it is accepted. Revocation must be communicated to the offeree before it is effective.
Payne v Cave [1789] 3 Term Rep 148
Routledge v Grant [1828] 6 LJCP 166
Dickenson v Dodds [1876] 2 Ch D 463
Can a unilateral offer be revoked after the act of performance has been commenced?
Errington v Errington [1952] 1 All ER 149
Daulia Ltd v Four Millbank Nominees Ltd [1978] 2 All ER 577
Goff LJ said, obiter, “”The true view of a unilateral contract must…be that the offeror is entitled to require full performance of the condition which he has imposed….subject to one important qualification, which stems from the fact that that there must be an implied obligation on the part of the offeror not to prevent the condition becoming satisfied, which obligation it seems to me must arise as soon as the offeree starts to perform”.
NB the postal rules do not apply to revocation
Byrne & Co. v Van Tienhoven & Co. [1880] 5 CPD 344
Express rejection or a counter offer will destroy the original offer
Hyde v Wrench [1840] 3 Beave 334
Tinn v Hoffman & Co. [1873] 29 LT 271
Lapse of time – Where it is expressly stated that an offer will remain open for a fixed period, the offer cannot be accepted after that period has expired. If no period is stipulated, the offer lapses after a reasonable time.
Ramsgate Victoria Hotel Co Ltd v Montefiore [1866] LR 1 Exch 109
