welcome everyone back to our lessons on contract law we've been talking about the creation of contracts in these lessons so far delineating between the first of these major Elements which is of course the concept of agreement and we've noted that agreement is comprised of two components these being the offer and the acceptance of the offer we've so far spent a lot of our time looking at the offer itself the the one side of the equation for establishing an agreement we talked about the distinction for example between an offer and an invitation to treat and the various pieces of case law that have tried to establish these principles in this lesson what we're going to do is talk about the other side of that equation we're going to talk about the acceptance of an offer so ultimately the other side of this transaction being the acceptance is one that probably merits a little bit more time um than we did or at least than we gave to the previous side of the equation so we're going to spend quite a few lessons looking at the acceptance um in this series before we start to move on to other considerations which form um the creation of contracts so as a recap just a quick recap um so far we've been looking at the nature of the offer as forming part of the first step for establishing whether or not a contract exists the first step is the agreement and then you also have to have consideration and you also have to have an intention to create legal relations and in some circumstances there has to be certain formalities so it has to be for example in writing although that is not a sufficient uh or at least a necessary requirement for every single type of contract that may exist we've looked at the concept of contractual intent as well as the distinction between an offer and an invitation to treat and in addition to this we've also looked at the types of offers which may exist as well this represents the first half of the agreement equation we know already that an agreement is an offer plus an acceptance so we've been looking so far at the first side when a an offerer makes an offer to contract um to another party so this is now going to talk start talking about the next of these components which is the acceptance of set offer the point in which we see the other side of the equation make an acceptance of the terms and of the offer to contract um by the offerer so generally speaking when we talk about the uh flip side of the equation when we start to talk about the other side of the process we're talking about the acceptance of an offer we tend to follow something known as the mirror Rule now the general rule which is the mirror rule is that the acceptance um of an offer is something that which ought to match the offer okay what does this mean well it means that when we looking uh when we look at an offer we apply lots of different principles for example we look at an objective approach as to whether or not an offer exists existed we talk about whether or not a a reasonable person or a Reas quote reasonable man or or a business of business acument uh will have understood the um the facts of a particular case to have been an offer and we say that this is an objective approach well it means that this very same objective approach that we apply to the offer of a contract has to also exist when we talk about the acceptance of said offer it should be noted as well that conduct may also be um constitutive of of an acceptance of an offer so um we will get to that in a second um but ultimately the mirror ruler tells us that we ought to really see um the acceptance of an offer in the similar kind of way to when how or or or or at least the the process by which an offer is made let's look at a case as an example this is a case from 1877 so relatively old case of Brogden and Metropolitan Railway the facts of this case are as follows the defendants um had supplied a railway company with coal um without there ever being a formal contract in place um the railway company were the claimants and uh the uh the defendant were the suppliers there was no contract in place to do so but it was just a sort of General agreement that that had existed between the parties for the claimants to um to or for the defendant should I say to supply this Railway company with coal there had been a draft contract sent by the claimant by the railway company um but no real formalities had taken place so that a draft contract had been sent to the defendants But ultimately nothing formal had taken place no no signatures for example had been U made and in addition to this they just sort of carried on um with their with their arrangement with their arrangement of supplying coal to the railway company this was a process by the way that went on for up to two years so draft contract was sent nothing formal had taken place and then as a process for up to two years there was just this supply of um the coal to the railway company when the defendants then decided to Cease the supply of the coal to the claimants the claimants would sue for breach of contract but you might be thinking well they never actually signed a contract it was there was no formal contract being in place there was a draft contract that was sent out uh and there was sort of the following of um the the the terms of the contract in the supplying of the coal but there was never any kind of formal uh formalities that had taken place no formal signatures for example so the question here was whether or not there was a contract between the defendants and the railway company and it was held that there was a contract because the acceptance of this contract was stipulated by the conduct of the defendant so rather than actually signing the contract themselves essentially what they had did had done was they had been given an offer to contract by the railway company in the actual draft contract itself and then they had just simply performed the terms of that contract and it was this performance and the the conduct of the defendants that constituted the establishment of a contract that existed the acceptance was stipulated by the conduct of the defendants and the defendants were in breach of that contract by ceasing on a whim to supply the coal it was found that where there is a draft contract and that the parties have acted upon this draft contract contract by acting in accordance with its terms they can become Bound by said contract so when I said at the previous slide that um it should be noted that conduct may be constitutive of an acceptance of the offer this is a good example of how this operates because what they are saying is there was no formal signing of a contract in the way that a acceptance could be established but instead there was the performance of the terms of a contract that was a draft contract and therefore this almost legitimizes the the draft contract in question because of the fact that they had acted in a way which performed or or was in accordance with the terms of the draft contract that was sent out