Adams v Lindsell
The postal rule: an acceptance sent by post takes effect when it is posted.
Facts
On 2 September 1817 the defendants, wool dealers, wrote to the plaintiffs, woollen manufacturers in Bromsgrove, offering to sell some fleeces and asking for an answer in course of post. The defendants misdirected the letter, so it did not reach the plaintiffs until the evening of 5 September. The plaintiffs posted a letter of acceptance that same evening, and it reached the defendants on 9 September. The defendants had expected a reply by 7 September, and when none arrived they sold the wool to someone else on 8 September. The plaintiffs sued for breach of contract.
Legal principle
The court held that a contract was made when the plaintiffs posted their acceptance on 5 September, so the defendants were in breach. If acceptance took effect only on receipt, the offeror could never be bound until he had been told of the acceptance, and the offeree could not be sure of a contract until told that the acceptance had arrived, and so on indefinitely. Where acceptance by post is reasonable, the offeror is treated as making the offer continuously while the letter travels, and the contract is complete when the acceptance is posted. The delay here was caused by the defendants' own mistake.
Related cases on offer and acceptance
- Blackpool and Fylde Aero Club Ltd v Blackpool Borough Council [1990] 1 WLR 1195
- Brinkibon Ltd v Stahag Stahl und Stahlwarenhandelsgesellschaft mbH [1983] 2 AC 34
- Butler Machine Tool Co Ltd v Ex-Cell-O Corp (England) Ltd [1979] 1 WLR 401
- Byrne & Co v Van Tienhoven & Co (1880) 5 CPD 344
- Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co [1893] 1 QB 256
- Dickinson v Dodds (1876) 2 Ch D 463
- Entores Ltd v Miles Far East Corp [1955] 2 QB 327
- Felthouse v Bindley (1862) 11 CB NS 869
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