particularly in the case of a bilateral contract, silence alone is insufficient
as acceptance.
The general theme of Felthouse v Bindley was taken up in statute in- Clearly a contract should not be imposed on any person who does not
wish it, and this seems totally reasonable. It would be wholly unreasonable
to send someone an item in the post and to be able to enforce a demand for
payment. This did in fact happen a lot before the passing of the Unsolicited
Goods and Services Act 1971. This Act supports the concept of freedom to
contract, stating that a recipient of unsolicited goods can treat them as an
unconditional gift if
- the goods are kept unused for 28 days and the seller informed that they
are not wanted, or - the goods are kept as new for six months unused.
This statute has been very effective with a huge decrease in ‘inertia’
methods of selling. Consumers can additionally rely on s. 24 of the
Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000. Under this
section unsolicited goods sent to consumers become an unconditional gift
immediately and it is an offence to demand payment for such goods.
Ignorance of an offer (the ‘reward’ cases)
Generally, if a person performs whatever is specified as acceptance, but is
totally unaware of the offer, there is not a binding contract. This might
easily arise in a ‘reward’ case. What if, for example, a person returns a dog,
not knowing that a reward had been offered for it? Is there an obligation to
hand over the reward money? There may well be a moral obligation, but in
law the answer will generally be no. The act which amounts to acceptance
must be done at least in part in response to the offer.
On the other hand, if a person knows of an offer, it does not matter that
the act of acceptance is performed for some motive other than gaining the
reward. The case of Williams v Carwardine demonstrates this.
Offer and acceptance 25Think about the facts of Felthouse v Bindley.Is it right that silence can never
be used as acceptance, even if the offeree clearly intended to accept, and
there is evidence of this in subsequent conduct (notifying the auctioneer, for
instance)?Williams v Carwardine (1833)
The defendant gave information which led to the arrest and conviction
of the murderers of a man called Carwardine. The defendant was the