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Postal acceptance rule query

B offers £5,000 for a good that A is selling via email, the email is read by A and is sending an acceptance to B via email. If A, in the meantime receives an email from B revoking the offer (but does not read it) does the contract still stand or has the offer been revoked even though A has not read the revocation before accepting the offer?

thanks in advance
Reply 1
Avatar for PatrickD
PatrickD
11
An email is not an official or legal contract so there is no real case for preventing the revocation of the offer made.

In terms of good will and sales etiquette, the buyer (or not as it were) would ideally commit to buying the item if they had offered to do so but equally the seller would ideally allow the purchase to be cancelled based on the potential buyer changing their mind.

If you're talking about forcing someone to pay for an item that they've changed their mind about, with all lines of communication purely by email and no money having exchanged hands, there is no case, in my opinion.
I had to pull out my old contract textbook to answer this one and my case law knowledge on this area hasn't been updated since 2009 so if there have been any MEGA cases in the last 2 years or so then you better check to see if something's changed - the area of e-mail offers has been a bit murky and they might've tried to sort it out but here's what I believe the answer to be.

In legal rules then acceptance takes place before revocation because acceptance is fulfilled as soon as A presses send on their acceptance email (postal rule) (Adams v Lindsell (1818)) but revocation only takes place on receipt of the revocation by A (Byrne &Co. v Van Tienhoven & Co. (1880)).

However with e-mail based offers then technically here the revocation takes effect before the acceptance because, even though A has not read it, A has still received a notification on their computer that they have an e-mail waiting to be read, which means the revocation has been communicated and received even if it hasn't been read. (Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2004])

As I said, the area of e-mail contracting is a bit murky but a reasonable argument for what I stated to be the case is that if it was possible for e-mail customers to avoid revocation of an offer simply by not reading the revocation e-mail and sending an acceptance one when they wished then it would be almost impossible to revoke offers made via e-mail.

To conclude: in this instance the offer is revoked before acceptance takes place as A receieved notice of the revocation e-mail even if they never read it.

Original post by PatrickD
An email is not an official or legal contract so there is no real case for preventing the revocation of the offer made.

In terms of good will and sales etiquette, the buyer (or not as it were) would ideally commit to buying the item if they had offered to do so but equally the seller would ideally allow the purchase to be cancelled based on the potential buyer changing their mind.

If you're talking about forcing someone to pay for an item that they've changed their mind about, with all lines of communication purely by email and no money having exchanged hands, there is no case, in my opinion.


:fyi: You can make a legally binding contract merely orally or written on any bit of junk paper, e-mail is just fine as well. The problem with these methods is that it's often hard to prove, (or easier for one side to dispute), which is why people think of "real" contracts as being the sort drawn up by lawyers and signed by witnesses. Think about if you were just meeting up with a friend for a coffee and you tell him that you'll sell your car for £400 to him, upon hearing this he tells you he thinks that's reasonable and will do the deal. Later he sends you the money by bank transfer and shows up at your house to collect the car and you refuse to sell him the car because you've changed your mind - well you've made a contract believe it or not and you're currently in breach of it! :tongue: Obviously because you're friends you'll probably just laugh it off, you'd return the money and you guys would forget the whole thing but if your friend REALLY wanted your car then technically he has the right to enforce the contract and get it off you*

*(Technically in the above situation then debateably no contract had been made because it fails the criterion of "intention to create legal relations (i.e. you and your friend weren't thinking of going to court if things didn't go the way you'd planned) but this is often considered a formality by the courts and they might still enforce the contract anyway.)
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 3
Avatar for shaunhail92
shaunhail92
OP
Original post by Faustus Fotherby
I literally don't know what the above poster is on about...

In LEGAL rules then acceptance takes place before revocation because acceptance is fulfilled as soon as A presses send on their acceptance email (postal rule) (Adams v Lindsell (1818)) but revocation only takes place on receipt of the revocation by A (Byrne &Co. v Van Tienhoven & Co. (1880)).

However with e-mail based offers then technically here the revocation takes effect before the acceptance because, even though A has not read it, A has still received a notification on their computer that they have an e-mail waiting to be read, which means the revocation has been communicated and received even if it hasn't been read. (Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2004])

The area of e-mail contracting is a bit murky but a reasonable argument for what I stated to be the case is that if it was possible for e-mail customers to avoid revocation of an offer simply by not reading the revocation e-mail and sending an acceptance one when they wished then it would be almost impossible to revoke offers made via e-mail.

To conclude: in this instance the offer is revoked before acceptance takes place as A receieved notice of the revocation e-mail even if they never read it.


Thanks very much for this reply, although i do have one more question if you don't mind. In the example it says that A is SENDING the acceptance email. Does the fact that it is sending assume that the acceptance email has not in fact been sent before B has received the email?
Thanks again
Original post by shaunhail92
Thanks very much for this reply, although i do have one more question if you don't mind. In the example it says that A is SENDING the acceptance email. Does the fact that it is sending assume that the acceptance email has not in fact been sent before B has received the email?
Thanks again


I edited my post quite a bit since you read it so have a look back over and see if that helps your understanding.

If he had pressed send before the e-mail notification telling him he had a e-mail popped up then he would have accepted the offer. If he saw the notification and then pressed send then he would not have accepted.

If his acceptance was in the process of being sent (i.e. he had clicked it but the servers were still handling the request) when the notification popped up then he would still have accepted the offer.

It's hard to give a complete answer with only the few facts we have available - the timing of what happened when is absolutely crucial to be totally sure but if you just cover all the possible options in your answer than that's usually what your teachers will be looking for.

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