32 A. 770 | N.H. | 1893
No contract for the sale of the shares to the plaintiff was completed. His acceptance of Mrs. Scott's offer was conditional. Their minds did not meet. If without disclosing the names of those who had offered her $800 a share, she had signed and returned to the plaintiff the bill of sale, he would have had the right to reject it and decline to take the stock. His letter of July 6 was a rejection of Mrs. Scott's offer, and a new proposal. Benj. Sa., s. 39. To this proposal she did not assent. If the plaintiff's letter of the next day was an unconditional acceptance of her offer, it was ineffectual, because too late; it was made after he had notice that the offer was withdrawn. If when she despatched [dispatched] the telegram she had known the contents of the plaintiff's letter of July 5, it might be evidence tending to show that she did not object to the acceptance on the ground that it was conditional. But at that time she had neither actual nor constructive knowledge of the condition. She made the public post her agent to receive from the plaintiff an unqualified acceptance of her offer, but not to receive a counter proposal or conditional acceptance. She was not chargeable with knowledge of the condition until she received the letter. Byrne v. Tienhoven, 5 C. P. Div. 344; Dunlop v. Higgins, 1 H. L. Ca. 381; Household Ins. Co. v. Grant, 4 Exch. Div. 216, 221, 228; Benj. Sa., ss. 68-75; Abbott v. Shepard,
The plaintiff is not entitled to a decree requiring Mrs. Scott to give him now, or at any time, the prior right to purchase the stock. The contract of March 5, 1888, was unlawful. Northern Railroad v. Railroad,
Bill dismissed.
CLARK, J., did not sit: the others concurred.