INGRAM V LITTLE

INGRAM V LITTLE(1961) QB 31

 MISTAKE - LEGAL CONSEQUENCES AND CLASSIFICATION OF MISTAKE - MISTAKE OF FACT - MISTAKE AS TO NATURE OF TRANSACTION OR IDENTITY OF PARTY - MISTAKE AS TO IDENTITY OF OTHER PARTY - GENERAL RULE

Where, in negotiations for a contract conducted orally inter praesentes, apparent agreement is reached but there is deception as to the identity of a proposed party, the test by which to determine whether there is a contract despite the deception is to answer a question of fact, viz whether, contrary to the primâ facie presumption that an offer is made to the person to whom it is addressed, the offeror is not contracting with the physical person to whom he utters the offer but with another individual whom he believes the person physically present to be. In answer to an advertisement of a car being for sale, a swindler called on two sisters, joint owners with a third person of the car, and agreed with one of the sisters E, who negotiated for the owners, to purchase the car for £717. On her categorically refusing to accept a cheque in payment, he tried to convince her that he was a reputable person and said that he was a Mr PGM Hutchinson and lived at Stanstead House, Stanstead Road, Caterham. While the discussion was going on, the other sister went to the local post office near by and returned to say that she had checked the name and address in the telephone directory. E thereupon decided to accept the cheque, on which the swindler wrote the name and address of Hutchinson, and the owners parted with the car to him. The cheque was dishonoured and the man, who was not Mr PGM Hutchinson, disappeared. In an action by the owners to recover the car or its value from a purchaser to whom the swindler had sold it within a few days of obtaining it, and who had bought it in good faith, the court found that E had intended to part with the property in the car to the swindler in the belief that he was the PGM Hutchinson named in the telephone directory, but that otherwise the sisters would not have accepted the cheque or parted with the car. On appeal: Held the offer to sell on payment by cheque was made only to the person (Mr PGM Hutchinson) whom the swindler had represented himself to be, and, as the swindler knew this, the offer was not one which was capable of being accepted by him; therefore there had been no contract for the sale of the car by plaintiffs and they were entitled to recover the car or damages from defendant.