Description
Contract under which there is an exchange of a promise for a promise. An insurance policy is deemed to be a unilateral contract.
Unilateral and Bilateral Contracts
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Unilateral and Bilateral Contracts
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Case: Artist for Slogans
Abhay works in the field of advertising. He is doing an advertisement campaign for a detergent powder. For the campaign, he needs slogans highlighting the product. Towards this, he offers to an artist, Manu, Rs. 5000 to generate 5 slogans. Manu accepts the offer by signing the offer document and returns it to Abhay. 1. To whom is the offer? 2. How has the offer been accepted? 3. Manu collects an advance of Rs. 500 but fails to deliver slogans. What are the rights of Abhay and Manu?
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Case: Slogan by the Public
Abhay, to get better slogans, put up an advertisement in the newspaper soliciting slogans from the public. The sender of every slogan, which qualifies in the basic criterion of using the name of the product, was to be sent a packet of the washing powder. Abhay gets a large number of responses. 1. To whom is the offer made? 2. How is the offer accepted? 3. Niraj sends in his slogans but Abhay refuses to send him the packet of detergent. 4. What if the advertisement does not generate any interest and no one responds? 4
Bilateral and Unilateral Contracts
A contract must have two parties. Both the parties assume certain rights and responsibilities. The contracts involved while buying goods from a shop or buying a train ticket to travel are bilateral contracts. Most contracts are bilateral.
In contrast to bilateral contracts are unilateral contracts. In unilateral contracts, only one side, that is, the offeror, is under an obligation. The most common example of such contracts is the ‘reward’ offer.
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Case 9: Carbolic Smoke Ball
£ 100 reward will be paid by the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company to any person who contracts the increasing epidemic influenza, colds, or any disease caused by taking cold, after having used the ball three times daily for two weeks according to the printed directions supplied with each ball. £ 1000 is deposited with the Alliance Bank, Regent Street, shewing our sincerity in the matter.
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… cond
1. Was the advertisement an offer?
2. To whom had the offer been made?
3. Could the offer have been accepted so as to convert it into an agreement? 4. Acceptance of an offer needs to be communicated to the person making the offer. Is the acceptance being communicated in this case?
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Judgement: Offer and Acceptance
It is an offer made to all the world; and why should not an offer be made to all the world which is to ripen into a contract with anybody who comes forward and performs the condition? It is an offer to become liable to any one who, before it is retracted, performs the condition, and, although the offer is made to the world, the contract is made with that limited portion of the public who come forward and perform the condition on the faith of the advertisement.
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Judgement: Notification
One cannot doubt that, as an ordinary rule of law, an acceptance of an offer made ought to be notified to the person who makes the offer, (however),… as notification of acceptance is required for the benefit of the person who makes the offer, the person who makes the offer may dispense with notice to himself .. if the person making the offer, expressly or impliedly intimates in his offer that it will be sufficient to act on the proposal without communicating acceptance of it to himself, performance of the condition is a sufficient acceptance without notification.
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Case
utt’s Missing Nephew
Gauri Dutt gave money to his servants for railway fare and other expenses, and sent them to different places in search of the missing boy. One of the servants, Lalman Shukla, the munim of Gauri Dutt’s firm, was sent to Hardwar. Later, after the servants had left, Gauri Dutt issued handbills offering a reward of Rs. 501 to any one who might find out the boy. He sent some handbills to Lalman Shukla also in Hardwar. Lalman traced the boy to Rishikesh and found him there. The boy was brought home. Gauri Dutt gave Lalman Rs. 20 for having found the boy. Mr. Shukla left the employment of Gauri Dutt and filed a suit for the recovery of Rs 501, the amount promised in the handbill.
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Judgement:
In the present case the claim cannot be regarded as one on the basis of a contract. The plaintiff was in the service of the defendant. As such servant he was sent to search for the missing boy. It is true that it was not within the ordinary scope of his duties as a munim to search for the missing relative of his master but when he agreed to go to Hardwar in search of the boy he undertook that particular duty. Being under that obligation, which he had incurred before the reward; in question was offered, he cannot, in my opinion, claim the reward. There was already a subsisting obligation and therefore, the performance of the act cannot be regarded as a consideration for the defendant’s promise
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doc_931473354.ppt
Contract under which there is an exchange of a promise for a promise. An insurance policy is deemed to be a unilateral contract.
Unilateral and Bilateral Contracts
1
Unilateral and Bilateral Contracts
2
Case: Artist for Slogans
Abhay works in the field of advertising. He is doing an advertisement campaign for a detergent powder. For the campaign, he needs slogans highlighting the product. Towards this, he offers to an artist, Manu, Rs. 5000 to generate 5 slogans. Manu accepts the offer by signing the offer document and returns it to Abhay. 1. To whom is the offer? 2. How has the offer been accepted? 3. Manu collects an advance of Rs. 500 but fails to deliver slogans. What are the rights of Abhay and Manu?
3
Case: Slogan by the Public
Abhay, to get better slogans, put up an advertisement in the newspaper soliciting slogans from the public. The sender of every slogan, which qualifies in the basic criterion of using the name of the product, was to be sent a packet of the washing powder. Abhay gets a large number of responses. 1. To whom is the offer made? 2. How is the offer accepted? 3. Niraj sends in his slogans but Abhay refuses to send him the packet of detergent. 4. What if the advertisement does not generate any interest and no one responds? 4
Bilateral and Unilateral Contracts
A contract must have two parties. Both the parties assume certain rights and responsibilities. The contracts involved while buying goods from a shop or buying a train ticket to travel are bilateral contracts. Most contracts are bilateral.
In contrast to bilateral contracts are unilateral contracts. In unilateral contracts, only one side, that is, the offeror, is under an obligation. The most common example of such contracts is the ‘reward’ offer.
5
Case 9: Carbolic Smoke Ball
£ 100 reward will be paid by the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company to any person who contracts the increasing epidemic influenza, colds, or any disease caused by taking cold, after having used the ball three times daily for two weeks according to the printed directions supplied with each ball. £ 1000 is deposited with the Alliance Bank, Regent Street, shewing our sincerity in the matter.
6
… cond
1. Was the advertisement an offer?
2. To whom had the offer been made?
3. Could the offer have been accepted so as to convert it into an agreement? 4. Acceptance of an offer needs to be communicated to the person making the offer. Is the acceptance being communicated in this case?
7
Judgement: Offer and Acceptance
It is an offer made to all the world; and why should not an offer be made to all the world which is to ripen into a contract with anybody who comes forward and performs the condition? It is an offer to become liable to any one who, before it is retracted, performs the condition, and, although the offer is made to the world, the contract is made with that limited portion of the public who come forward and perform the condition on the faith of the advertisement.
8
Judgement: Notification
One cannot doubt that, as an ordinary rule of law, an acceptance of an offer made ought to be notified to the person who makes the offer, (however),… as notification of acceptance is required for the benefit of the person who makes the offer, the person who makes the offer may dispense with notice to himself .. if the person making the offer, expressly or impliedly intimates in his offer that it will be sufficient to act on the proposal without communicating acceptance of it to himself, performance of the condition is a sufficient acceptance without notification.
9
Case
utt’s Missing NephewGauri Dutt gave money to his servants for railway fare and other expenses, and sent them to different places in search of the missing boy. One of the servants, Lalman Shukla, the munim of Gauri Dutt’s firm, was sent to Hardwar. Later, after the servants had left, Gauri Dutt issued handbills offering a reward of Rs. 501 to any one who might find out the boy. He sent some handbills to Lalman Shukla also in Hardwar. Lalman traced the boy to Rishikesh and found him there. The boy was brought home. Gauri Dutt gave Lalman Rs. 20 for having found the boy. Mr. Shukla left the employment of Gauri Dutt and filed a suit for the recovery of Rs 501, the amount promised in the handbill.
10
Judgement:
In the present case the claim cannot be regarded as one on the basis of a contract. The plaintiff was in the service of the defendant. As such servant he was sent to search for the missing boy. It is true that it was not within the ordinary scope of his duties as a munim to search for the missing relative of his master but when he agreed to go to Hardwar in search of the boy he undertook that particular duty. Being under that obligation, which he had incurred before the reward; in question was offered, he cannot, in my opinion, claim the reward. There was already a subsisting obligation and therefore, the performance of the act cannot be regarded as a consideration for the defendant’s promise
11
doc_931473354.ppt