Business Law I

Unit 4 Assignment

The most essential element of a contact is the formation of the agreement. An agreement is when parties agree on the terms of a contract. The agreement has two events; an offer and an acceptance (Miller, R., & Jentz, G., 2008, p.167). When Carrie offered to sell a set of legal encyclopedias she promised to perform the acting of selling. Carrie must also meet three elements for the offer to be effective. First, Carrie must be serious about selling the set of legal encyclopedias. Secondly, Carrie needs to ensure the terms of the offer are reasonable. Lastly, Carrie needs to communicate the offer to the offeree(Miller, R., & Jentz, G., 2008,p.167-168).

Carrie met all three requirements to make the selling of her set of legal encyclopedias a valid offer. However, there was no acceptance from Antonio because he said that he would think about and get back with her the following day. Taking into consideration that Carrie made an offer and Antonio did not accept there has been no agreement formed. Since Antonio never made a commitment to buy, legally Carrie can keep looking for a buyer.

Norvel overheard the conversation between Carrie and Antonio, and is interested in purchasing the set of legal encyclopedias. He walked up to Carrie and said, “I accept your offer”. Carrie now has the decision to either wait to hear back from Antonio, or to sell them to Norvel. By law, she does have the right to offer the books to anyone else because her original offer was not accepted making a legally binding contract. Carrie also has no obligation to sell the book to Norvel. Norvel only overheard the offer made to Antonio, so the offer would not apply to him. An offer would only be formed if Carrie directly makes an offer Norvel.

At that time, Carrie made the decision Carrie sold Norvel the books. Carrie did nothing illegal by selling the books. Legally Carrie can revoke the offer made to Antonio at any time. Revocation is the act of withdrawing an offer...