Principles Of Contract: Offer And Bilateral Offers

for Unilateral offer and Bilateral offer.

1. Advertisements for unilateral offer – Offer to the public at large
Offers can be addressed to the general public and are accepted when the offer is acted upon a member of the general public. An important exception to the general rule that advertisements are merely invitations to treat is where there is an offer in relation to a unilateral offer contained in an advert i.e. where the offeror makes a promise in return for an act. Ali’s advertisement is considered as a unilateral offer since the contract is based on being automatically accepted without the need for negotiations as he states in the advert. ‘’ the rug will go to the first person who accepts it’’. A similar case is the Carlill v Carbolic

According to Per Lord Dunedin (quoting from Pollock ‘Principles of Contract’) in Dunlop v Selfridge [1915] AC 847, “An act or forbearance of one party, or the promise there of, is the price for which the promise of the other is bought, and the promise thus given is enforceable”.
As stated in the rules of consideration, ‘’Consideration must be sufficient, not adequate.’’ For example, in Hamer v. Sidway, the promisor promised the promisee to pay him $5000 if the promisee refrained from smoking and drinking until his 21st birthday. As the promisee had carried out his promise, the court found that because the promisee had a legal right to smoke and drink the restriction of this right in order to complete the promise constituted a forbearance suffered and therefore was sufficient consideration in order to give legal effect to the contract
However, it must be determined whether Das’s promise to come until Monday constitutes sufficient consideration. Since, no deposit was made that is there was not sufficient consideration. Das would have to prove that he gave some sort of consideration to Ali to keep the offer open and if Das has taken a bank loan, the court may consider it as a valid consideration. Otherwise, the agreement does not stand according to the law. Therefore, Das cannot have any legal action against

In Beard v London General Omnibus Co, the claimant failed to prove that the conductor was authorized to drive the bus and therefore failed to establish that they were responsible for his negligence. As written in the Card & James, there are two tests used by the court to determine whether this requirement is met which is the Salmond test (Salmond’s Law of Torts) and the ‘close connection’ test (established in Lister v Hesley Hall Ltd 2002). Under the Salmond test, the requirement would be met if the tort was either: (i) A wrongful act authorized by the employer, (ii) A wrongful and unauthorized mode of doing some act authorized by the