You are JoeCo’s GM. George owns a small, retail used-computer store in Duluth. Y
ID: 384568 • Letter: Y
Question
You are JoeCo’s GM. George owns a small, retail used-computer store in Duluth. You meet him one day at a systems training session and get to talking about your respective businesses. In the conversation, you say that sometimes you have used computers left over from contracts that the customer doesn’t need. As you part, you suggest that George stay in touch because you could sell him 12-15 computers a year at a discount.
Six weeks later and without any further contact, George signs and sends a fax to you at JoeCo, that says, “Confirming our agrmt–I pick any 15 comptrs fr yr invty–30% below your cost.”
You read the fax, laugh, and throw it away. Two weeks later, George arrives and demands to purchase 15 of JoeCo’s computers.
Are we obligated to sell to George? What legal arguments does George have that we have an enforceable contract? What are our defenses?
Explanation / Answer
The legal arguments that George will have for the above mentioned case is that for any contract to be legally enforceable the main two conditions are offer and acceptance. If a party makes and offer to the other party, which may not necessarily be a written one, then the second party has rights to accept or reject it. Moreover, a written consent holds importance in legal view but if not provided it does not invalidate the offer. So George, can in this case consider the suggestion that I gave as a verbal offer and the fax sent by him as a written acceptance from his side making it a legally enforceable contract. As I did not revoke to the fax sent by him through written disagreement, he considered the silence as an agreement to the contract. Silent agreement is considered valid if the offerer has a connection with the acceptor and does not disagree with the agreement immediately after its acceptance.
My defense in the above case can be that I did not make an offer in written and it should have been taken only as a suggestion and not a verbal offer. No contact was made between the two parties for a long time after the first verbal conversation. Verbal contracts are made only when the offer and acceptance is made immediately or within a short span of time. For example- offerer says,"I will wash your car for $20" and acceptor in immediate response says "the deal is good". In this case a verbal contract is made between the two as the offer and acceptance was made instantly and not after a long period of time.
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