Case Citation: (1866) LR 1 Ex Ch 109
Presiding country: England (UK)
Introduction: In this case defended who applied to buy shares in the company in June and also paid a deposit into the company account. So, the offer was not accepted in a reasonable time by the company. The acceptance took place in November and the company informed the defendant that shares had been allotted to him and that the balance of the purchase price should be paid. But at that time the value of the shares was less and the defendant refused to accept the shares and the court held the refusal justified because such a proposal should have been accepted within a reasonable time. The period between June and November was clearly not reasonable.
Issues:
The issues in the above case deal with:
Revocation of offer by lapse of time and provides for two situations: 1) Lapse of time occurring upon the expiration of the time prescribed in the proposal for its acceptance. Therefore, the issue in the case was that there was no specific time limit for the acceptance of the offer given by the defended by the company. 2) By the lapse of a reasonable time, in the above case the acceptance was communicated after a reasonable or practiced time. The issue in the case is based on the lapse of a reasonable time since there was no specific time was assigned for the acceptance.
Judgment:
Based on the nature of a proposal, once communicated, remains open until it lapses or is withdrawn. Under normal circumstances, there is no obligation for the proposer to keep his proposal open indefinitely. He may revoke it at any time before acceptance. Furthermore, one of the conditions that automatically revoke the proposal is the lapse of time either specified or reasonable time limits. As in the above case the court accepted and judged against the plaintiff because no specific time was prescribed by the company and they did not communicated their