A similar approach was taken in the following more recent case.
The decision in these cases, that a contract did exist, even though it could
not be said with certainty when it was formed, illustrates how a court looks
through the eyes of a ‘reasonable man’ to see if a contract has been made.
This objective approach should always be remembered when looking at
problems of contract law, and particularly when looking for an acceptance.
Communication of acceptance
Just making a mental decision to accept an offer is not normally enough.
The offeree must show in some positive way an intention to accept.
Sometimes this will mean that acceptance has to be communicated to the
offeror in a prescribed way.
Prescribed acceptance
If the offeror stipulates that an offer must be accepted in a certain way, then
he is not bound unless acceptance is made in that way. So if an offeror asks
for acceptance to be sent to a particular place, acceptance sent somewhere
else will not be binding. Similarly, if he requests acceptance in writing, oral
acceptance will not bind. However, it may be different if the offeror only
suggests a method of acceptance. The principle emerged from the
following case, Yates Building v Pulleyn (1975), that unless the offeror
22 Contract law
the mental agreement to the counter-offer, but the external evidence of
the agreement, by the actions later.Trentham Ltd v Archital Luxfer (1993)
The case concerned contracts to carry out carpentry work on a building
project. The contract was said to take into account the ‘reasonable
expectations of sensible businessmen’, not the ‘unexpressed mental
reservations of the parties’. It was also important that in this situation
the work was actually being carried out, whether or not offer and
acceptance were apparent and easily identifiable.If the courts were prepared to find that a contract existed in the cases of
Brogdenand Trentham, why do you think that they are so precise about
looking for offer and acceptance in other cases?