Contract law case example for an offer lapsing a specified time limit in the contract?

[darrick34]

Hi,

I'm working on some law coursework.

One thing that has me hindered is finding an example of a case where the contract was terminated as the customer did not respond to the offer within a specified time limit (i.e. someone promised to sell a customer 500 bails of hay, and asked them to respond within 1 month, but the customer only let them know after 1 and a half months that they'd accept, by which point the seller had already sold them to someone else) - this doesn't relate to the reasonable time rule, as the time limit is specified within the contract, but the only example of time lapses i can find online or in the text books refers to Ramsgate Victoria Hotel v Montefiore (1866), which is only applicable for the reasonable time rule.

Could anyone help me out with a relevant case to the sort of problem i made up above? Or failing that, point me towards the piece of legislation/act that specifies a contract will not be valid if it is not accepted within the specified time constraint?

Thanks

[ruelle]

The vast majority of legal authority in English contract law is from caselaw, not statute. Statutes are important in things like implied terms, unfair terms, sale of goods to consumers etc, but rules on offer, acceptance and consideration and estoppel are almost exclusively in cases.

An offer may lapse after a reasonable time (Ramsgate Victoria Hotel), the "reasonable time" would be short if the goods were perishable (Quenerduaine v Cole [1883] 32 WR 185) or after a time specified in the offer. If the offer specified a time by which the offer must be accepted then it lapses when that time is reached. But an offer with a specified time limit to accept may be revoked before that time is reached.

If an offer was open for a specified time and consideration had been given to keep the offer open, then it cannot be revoked and can only lapse when that time is reached - Mountford v Scott