Detailed Analysis of Common Law Cases Assignment

Detailed Analysis of Common Law Cases - Assignment Example Boots Cash Chemists (Southern) Ltd. [1953] 1 QB 401. In this case, the court held that a seller of pharmaceuticals in a shop is not making a valid offer to the customers of these pharmaceuticals, and that, when a customer picks up a pharmaceutical and brings it to the counter, that customer is not making an acceptance. Fisher v. Bell [1961] 1 QB 394 further states that a shopkeeper offering an item for sale is not making a valid offer, but, rather, when the customer presents the item to the cashier, the customer is the one making the offer to buy. The acceptance, in this case, is the act of the cashier taking the customers money. Partridge v. Crittenden [1968] 1 WLR 1204 further provides credence for this view, as, in the Partridge case, the offer of birds for sale was not a valid offer, in part because the storekeeper might be contractually bound to sell items that he might not actually own. This line of cases establishes that Doris did not make a valid offer (rdi.co.uk.com). She put a vase in the window of her shop with a sign stating that the vase was on offer for  £500. Unless she was making a different kind of advertisement where she offered to pay somebody money in exchange for something else, as was the case in Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Ball Co. [1893] 1 QB 256, the seemingly only exception to the rule that advertisements are not considered offers, then Doris cannot be said to have made a valid offer. Even if Doris was held to have made a valid offer, then Frank cannot be held to have made a valid acceptance, as he offered  £400 for it. He was thus making a counteroffer, because of the â€Å"mirror image rule,† which states that an unequivocal acceptance must mirror the offer exactly, and any deviation made by the offeree to the offeror is a counteroffer (rdi.co.uk.com; Restatement 2d Contracts  §59a).