Contract law
4336 mots
18 pages
CONTRACT LAW Cours du 4/10/2010
MANQUE (un écrit un loupé)
Cours du 11/10/2010
[….]
Part 1 – offer and acceptance
This is the first requirement even if not sufficient. This is the first necessary condition for the formation of a contract. The governing principle is that there should be a meeting of the minds and an exact correpondance between the offer and the acceptance. The parties may use words in the way different from the law. Regarding to the agreement, the law requires that there should be an offer and an acceptance (“slots”). The court consider that it in fact may mean “I accept” as a value of an offer and vice versa. Whatever the words the parties use, the court distinguished the offer and the acceptance.
Chapter 1 – definition the definition has been developed case by case by the courts.
Offer : it starts with an offer. There is no set definition. Statute law prevails over a contract (which is case law).
WILKIE v LONDON PASSENGER TRANSPORT BOARD (1947) : When you enter the bus, the bus is making an offer and by entering it you accept the offer. You undertake to pay the price.
TIMOTHY v SIMPSON 1843 : there is a dress in a shop window, but there is a mistake on its price. The judge agreed with the shop saying that whatever the mistake was, the shop window is “an invitation” to enter, and not an offer.
FISHER v BELL 1961 : it shows how criminal law can involve contract law. There is a statute prohibiting flic knifs to be offered for sale. The police showed one in a shop window à Prosecution of the shop owner in the magistrates court. Appeal to the QBD. Under the legal meaning of “offer”, this is not an offer because it was in the shop window. The judges squashed the decision saying that it is only “an invitation to treat” in view of a sale. This is therefore, not an offence. price-marked flick-knife displayed in shop window seller prosecuted under Offensive weapons Act 1961
Acquitted as 'display of article with a price on it in a shop