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Course
Contract Law (BL1174)

Institution
Aston University, Birmingham (Aston)

Book
Poole\'s Textbook on Contract Law

Lecture notes study book Poole's Textbook on Contract Law of Robert Merkin QC, Severine Saintier (Chapter 2) - ISBN: 9780198816980, Edition: 14th Revised edition, Year of publication: - (Notes on Agreement)

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Uploaded on March 22, 2021
Number of pages 5
Written in 2019/2020
Type Class notes
Professor(s) Elizabeth dolan
Contains Agreement - acceptance

acceptance
offer
agreement
contract law
contract
law
bl1174
aston law

Book Title:Poole\'s Textbook on Contract Law

Author(s):Robert Merkin QC, Severine Saintier

Edition:Unknown
ISBN:9780198816980
Edition:14

Institution
Aston University, Birmingham (Aston)
Education
Aston University, Birmingham
Course
Contract Law (BL1174)

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Agreement – Acceptance

Two requirements:-

- Acceptance in fact
- Acceptance must be communicated

Outcomes in acceptance in fact: -

1) Mirror Image Rule
- acceptance must be mirror of the offer
- Acceptance must correspond with the exact terms in the offer
- If offeree introduces a new term or amends term = counter offer

2) Counter-offer and Request for Further Information

- if offeree introduces a new term or amends a term
- Offer + counter offer = counter offer
- Counter can be accepted expressly or by conduct
- Offer + counter offer = destroys original offer
- Counter offer can extinguish original offer
- Does not destroy original offer so that it remains open for acceptance later
- Request for further information keeps original offer alive

Hyde v wrench (1840) – Counter Offer

- D offered to sell his farm to P for £1000
- P replied by offering to pay £950 for it
- D refused the P’s offer of the £950
- P thereupon offered the original prive of £1000
- D did not respond
- Held: No binding contract to purchase the farm

Stevenson v McLean (1880) – Request for Further Information

- D offered to sell iron to Ps at 40 net cash per ton – offer open until Monday
- Ps’ reply ‘ Please wire whether you would accept 40s for delivery over 2 months or if not
longest limit you could give’
- Not a counter-offer. It did not reject D’s offer but was simply inquiring whether D would
stagger delivery
- There was ‘no counter proposal’ from Ps in this response.

3) Battle of the forms

- each party trying to get the contract to be on their terms and conditions
- Inevitably there are differences
- Problem on occasion as a result ‘battle of the forms’ there may be no contract. No matching
offer and acceptance – despite what the parties themselves may think

Authority: Butler Machine Tool v Ex-Cell (1979) and Tekdata v Amphenol (2009)

- Sellers’ Quotation – term that price of machine market at date of delivery = Offer

, - Buyers’ order – no price variation = Counter-offer
- Sellers completed and returned acknowledgment slip at bottom of buyers’ order ‘we accept
your order on the Terms and Conditions stated thereon’ = Expressly accepted counter-offer,
fixed price, no price variation
- Majority of CA applied Hyde v Wrench
- Buyers’ order was a counter-offer
- Sellers had expressly accepted that counter-offer by signing and returning acknowledgement
slip
- There was therefore a contract on the buyers’ terms (fixed price contract – no price
variation)
- In a the ‘battle of forms’ acceptance may be by conduct
- Acceptance by conduct can often (although not always) take the form of delivery of goods
after the last shot is fired

Brogden v Metropolitan Rlwy, Tekdata v Amphenol, Trebor Bassett v ADT Fire & Security

Chronology

Offer  Counter-offer  Acceptance by Conduct

- Secret to success – get the last shot in before offer is accepted

4) Prescribed method of acceptance
- the method in which the respondent must accept the offer is made clear by offeror
- If the prescribed method was to benefit offeree, offeree can waive stipulation for his benefit
if it does not adversely affect offeror. (Yates v Pulleyn)

Manchester Diocesan (1970)

- Acceptance by letter to specified address
- P (offeree) wanted this so that on posting there would be binding acceptance
- But P sent acceptance to D’s surveyor instead
- Buckley J held was valid acceptance because:
a) No less advantageous to D (offeror) to receive notification of acceptance via his surveyor
b) P (offeree) could waive stipulation for his benefit so that acceptance was not effective unil
actually communicated to D’s surveyor

5) Acceptance in response to offer and with knowledge of it

- must be made in response to the offer and with knowledge of the offer
- claimant, for example, would not be entitled to a reward when performance of the
requested act had taken place in ignorance of the reward. R v Clarke (1927) – someone gave
information without knowing
- Williams v Carwardine (1833) – so long as an offeree had knowledge of the offer and accepts
in response to the offer – his motive for doing do will be irrelevant
- Gibbons v Proctor (1891) – information should be given to a particular person namely
Superintendent Pen to claim a reward. Information initially given to another colleague of
Superintendent Penn when there was no knowledge of the reward. But by the time the
information reached Superintendent Penn – the offeree had knowledge of the reward.

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