RELATING THE ISSUE WITH OFFER AND

INVITATION TO TREAT

Offer Versus Invitation to Treat

An offer is an invitation that is communicated by someone to

another party to create a binding agreement with specific terms.
The acceptance must result in a valid contract and is legally
binding on all parties.

An invitation to treat is essentially an invitation to start

negotiations with the intent to create an offer. Examples include
a recruitment company inviting applicants or a restaurant's menu
card that displays prices.

Advertisement

Advertisements are all around us such online, print billboards,

magazines, newspapers, and television. Ads claim to sell the
best products with lowest prices and great service. But, do they
represent the commencement of a contract? In most cases, the
answer is no. However, advertisers may be held accountable for
any untruthful messages that are communicated in their
advertisements. Although they may make certain claims about
their products, and these claims must be provable, they are not
being offered in the legal sense of a contract.
Advertisements are typically an invitation to treat because they
lack the important information that would make it an offer.
There are circumstances where an advertisement would be an
offer.

If descriptive words are used to intend to bind someone and

there is confidence in all the applicable terms, the advertisement
is likely to be deemed an offer instead of an invitation to treat.
Stating a price by itself is ordinarily an invitation to treat, but if
the store binds itself to take a certain price by placing tags, there
could be an offer which is accepted when the customer goes to
the counter.

As stated above, there is some circumstances where an

advertisement would be an offer. In this case, the Medic
Pharmaceutical made an advertisement in international
magazine saying that whoever consume their medicine which
can cure aids will not suffer for aids and will recover from aids
illness within a month. This was an invitation of treat as an
advertisement but the advertisement turned into a offer when
there was a communication of acceptance by Medic
Pharmaceutical as they included that they will pay compensation
to those party who do not get any result right after one month
applying the medicine. So the advertisement made by the Medic
Pharmaceutical became a offer under a circumstance which got
a communication of acceptance.

RELATING THIS ISSUE WITH CARLILL V CARBOLIC

SMOKE BALL

A unilateral contract is one in which one party has obligations

but the other does not. Unilateral contracts sometimes occur in
sport in circumstances where a reward is involved. Party A
offers a reward to Party B if they achieve a particular aim. If
Party B is successful they get the reward but if they
unsuccessful they receive no reward and equally they have no
obligation to Party A.

Legal principles about unilateral contracts arose from the case of

Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co. 1893.

The Carbolic Smoke Ball Company, during an influenza

epidemic, placed an advertisement indicating that they promised
to pay £100 to anyone (hence a unilateral contract) who caught
influenza after using their ball as indicated for two weeks. They
had deposited £1000 in a bank account as a gesture of good
faith.
Mrs Carlill purchased the ball, used it as directed, but caught
influeza and sued the Carbolic Smoke Ball Co. who then refused
to pay.

The court awarded Mrs Carlill damages of £100.

Points of Law:

A suggestion that the offer was too vague to form the basis for a
binding agreement, in that it had no time limit, was rejected by
the court, which felt that the ball must have been intended to
protect its user during the two week prescribed period of use.
The court viewed the deposit of the £1000 as evidence of an
intention to pay any claims and therefore rejected the notion that
the offer was simply an advertising gimmick. The proposal that
it is impossible to make an offer to the world at large was also
rejected; the contract that arises from such an offer will be
unilateral. The use of the product was deemed sufficient
consideration. Communication of acceptance, in unilateral
contract of this kind, may be made by conduct.
So, if a person offers a reward to anyone who achieves a certain
objective as desired by the offerer, then it is probable that who
ever makes the offer will have to pay to persons who are
successful.

CONCLUSION

In this case, we need to find out whether the advert in question

constituted an offer or an invitation to treat. We can determine
that the Medic Pharmaceutical made an offer by giving
compensation to those who didn’t get any result in their
advertisement in a international magazine. Although the
advertisement under the invitation to treat but when there is
offer made by Medic Pharmaceutical it became a
communication of acceptance. In this case, there is no
requirement that the offeree communicates an intention to
accept, since acceptance is through full performance. The use of
the product was deemed sufficient consideration. Moreover, the
promise is binding even though not made to anyone in particular
a unilateral offer which“offers to anybody who performs the
conditions named in the advertisement, and anybody who does
perform the condition accepts the offer”. As what I learned from
this case, Mrs Matthew Xavier will success over claiming the
compensation amount. Finally, if a person offers a reward to
anyone who achieves a certain objective as desired by the
offerer, then it is probable that who ever makes the offer will
have to pay to persons who are successful.