Transcript Law of Contract - Teesside University

Law of Contract
Tony Walmsley and Emma Teare
Requirements for a contract
• Offer + Acceptance = Agreement
• Consideration
• Intention to Create Legal Relations
Offer or Invitation to Treat?
• An offer once accepted creates an agreement
• An offer can be contrasted with an invitation to treat
• An invitation to treat is an invitation to enter negotiations
• The “acceptance” of an invitation to treat does NOT
create an agreement
• It is not always easy to distinguish between an offer and
an invitation to treat
Offer or Invitation to Treat?
In certain types of standard transactions
(e.g. display of goods, advertisements)
there are some general rules that apply as
to whether or not an offer has been made
(can be rebutted)
Advertisements
• Generally these are Invitations to Treat
NOT offers
• If an advert in the paper was an offer the
person who placed the advertisement
would be required to contract with
anyone/everyone who wanted to purchase
the goods at the price stated
Examples of Invitations to Treat
• Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain
v Boots [1953] 1 QB 401
• Partridge v Crittenden [1968] 1 WLR
1204
• Fisher v Bell [1961] 1 QB 394
Some adverts ARE offers
• Often this is the case in UNILATERAL
contracts
• The leading case is…
Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co
[1893] 1 QB 256 Court of Appeal
Rewards are often offers
• Gibbons v Proctor
(1891) 64 LT 594
• Taylor v Allon [1966] 1
QB 304
• R v Clarke (1927) 40
CLR 227
• Williams v Cawardine
(1833) 5 C & P 566
Example question:
‘Chris offered to sell:
a) his Hornby train set to Richard…..’
Is this necessarily an offer in the legal
sense?