LAW299 Prep Class QUESTION AND ANSWERS PDF

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LAWTUTORIAL QUESTIONSQuestion 1Lela had lost her son, Amirul. She advertised in the local newspaper thatwhoever finds Amirul and returns him to Lela, she would give that personRM10,000 as a reward. Three days later, Amirul was found by Daniel whoreturned him to Lela. Daniel had read the newspaper an...

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LAW299 TUTORIAL QUESTIONS Question 1 Lela had lost her son, Amirul. She advertised in the local newspaper that whoever finds Amirul and returns him to Lela, she would give that person RM10,000 as a reward. Three days later, Amirul was found by Daniel who returned him to Lela. Daniel had read the newspaper and seen the advertisement. Advise Daniel whether he is entitled to the reward. (15 marks) Source - Question 1(b) – March 2017

Question 2 Milli proposed to sell his piano to Vanilla for RM 8,000 to be accepted within one week. Vanilla agreed to buy the piano for RM 6,000. Immediately after receiving Vanilla's reply, Milli sold the piano to Tim. Vanilla wishes to sue Milli for breach of contract. Advise Milli. Source - Question 2(a) - September 2012

Question 1

(10 marks)

The issue of the question is whether the advertisement is an offer or an invitation to treat. Section 2(a) of the Contracts Act 1950 defines an offer as ‘when one person signifies to another willingness to do or to abstain from doing anything, with a view to obtaining the assent of that other to the act or abstinence.’ An invitation to treat is not an offer, it is a preliminary communication made by one party to attract the other party to enter into a contract. Thus, the other party cannot make any acceptance as there is no offer. An agreement will only exist when there is an offer and an acceptance. However, the offeree must know about the existence of the offer otherwise the acceptance is not valid. One of the situations where an invitation to treat exist is an advertisement. When a person places an advertisement, he is not making an offer but is inviting the other party to make an offer to him. If the other party is interested, he will make an offer to the advertiser and it is up to the advertiser whether to accept the offer or not. For example, in the case of Majumder v AG of Sarawak (1967) 1 MLJ 101, the plaintiff had applied for the post of a doctor with the government. He was not selected for the job and he sued the government for breach of contract on the basis that he had accepted the offer made by the government through an advertisement in the newspaper. The court held that the advertisement was only an invitation to treat. Interested applicants offer their services to the government by applying for the job and it is the government who will then choose which candidate to accept for the post. However, an advertisement can become an offer if the advertisement offers a reward. The advertisement will contain conditions which an interested party must fulfil in order to obtain the reward. In this situation, the advertisement is an offer to the public and anyone who satisfies the conditions in the advertisement has accepted the offer by conduct. In the case of Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co, the defendants posted an advertisement offering to pay £100 to anyone who still caught influenza after using one of their smoke balls in a specified manner. The plaintiff had bought and used the smoke ball and subsequently got influenza. She sued for the £100 but was refused by the defendant on the ground that the advertisement was not an offer but an ITT. The court held that the advertisement contained conditions which were directed to the public. Thus, anyone who satisfied those conditions are considered to have made an acceptance. In the case of Lela, she had placed an advertisement for the return of her son in exchange for the payment of RM10,000. This advertisement is not an ITT but is an offer as it offers a reward of RM10,000. Anyone who wishes to claim the money must find Amirul and return him to Lela as that is the condition for the reward. Daniel had seen and read the advertisement, so this means that he knew about the offer. He had also satisfied the conditions by finding and returning Amirul to Lela. Thus, Daniel had accepted the offer and is entitled to receive the RM10,000 reward. My advice to Daniel is that he may claim the reward as the advertisement is an offer and he has accepted the offer by fulfilling the conditions stated in the advertisement.

Question 2 The issue in this question is counter offer. An agreement will only exist if there is an offer and an acceptance. In order to be valid, an acceptance must be absolute and unqualified as stated in section 7(a) of the Contracts Act 1950. This means that an acceptance must fit or match the offer. The acceptance must not change anything in the offer such as the price and the subject matter. If an acceptance does not match the offer, it becomes a qualified acceptance. A qualified acceptance is not a valid acceptance as it has changed the content of the offer. It then becomes a counter offer. A counter offer is a new offer made by the offeree to the offeror. The offeror has now become the offeree and he has the choice to either accept or reject the offer. The effect of a counter offer is that the original offer becomes automatically revoked. Therefore, the original offer no longer exists, and the offeree cannot accept the offer after he has made a counter offer. For instance, in Hyde v Wrench (1840) 3 Beav. 334, the defendant offered to sell his estate to the plaintiff for £1000. The plaintiff accepted the offer for £950 but two days later made another acceptance for £1000. The defendant did not reply but refused to proceed with the sale. The plaintiff sued the defendant for breach of contract. The court held that the plaintiff had made a counter-offer when he accepted the offer for £950. It had automatically revoked the defendant’s offer so that the defendant could ignore the plaintiff’s second acceptance. Thus, there was no contract between them. Milli had made an offer of RM8,000 to sell his piano but Vanilla had accepted the offer for a lesser amount of RM6,000. Vanilla’s acceptance is not valid as it did not match the price stated in the offer. He has in fact made a counter offer. Milli can decide whether to accept the counter offer or not. In this case, Milli had not accepted the counter offer. Instead, he had opted to sell the piano to Tim. Milli is entitled to sell the piano to Tim as there was no contract between him and Vanilla. Vanilla’s acceptance was not valid as it was a counter offer. I advise Milli that Vanilla cannot sue him for breach of contract because there is no contract between them. The acceptance made by Vanilla was not valid as it did not match the offer....