Where an offer of sale of land stands for twenty years, and until after the death of the party to whom it is made, without com pliance with its terms, • the widow and sole devisee of such party cannot accept the proposition, and offer to perform it, and thereby make contract binding on proposer; Marr v. Shaw, 51 Jed. 860.
A man may change his mind at any time, if it is not to the injury of another ; he may, therefore, revoke or recall his offers at any time before they have been accepted ; and, in order to deprive him of this right, the offer must have been accepted on the terms in which it was made; 10 Ves. 438; 2 C. & P. 553. See Ans. Contr. 31.
A general proposal by public advertisement may be effectually revoked by an announce ment in the same newspaper, even as against a person who afterwards acts on the pro posal not knowing that it had been revoked; Shuey v. U. S., 92 U. S. 73, 23 L. Ed. 697; raid in Poll. Contr. 23, to be judicial legisla tion.
Any qualification of, or departure from, those terms invalidates the offer, unless the same be agreed to by the party who made it ; Eliason v. Renshaw, 4 Wheat. (U. S.) 225, 4 L. Ed. 556; Mactier's Adm'rs v. Frith, 6 Wend. (N. Y.) 103, 21 Am. Dec. 262; Poll. Contr. 38; i. e. there is no contract entered into.
When the offer has been made, the party is presumed to be willing for the time limit ed, to enter into the contract and, if the time be not fixed by the offer, then until it be expressly revoked or rendered nugatory by a contrary presumption ; Mactier's Adiu'rs v. Frith, 6 Wend. (N. Y.) 103, 21 Am. Dec. 262a See McCulloch v. Ins. Co., I Pick. (Mass.) 278 ; Tucker v. Woods, 12 Johns. (N. 1.) 190, 7 Am. Dec. 305; Watson v. Coast, 35 W. Va. 463, 14 S. E. 249; 1 Bell, Com. 326; an ,offer is considered as continuously made until it is brought to the notice of the per son to whom it was made that it is with drawn. That person's refusal or counter offer puts an end to the original offer; Poll. Contr. 30.
And see ASSENT ; BID.; OPTION ; LETTER.
An offer must be communicated, but in many classes of contracts it need not be made to an ascertained person : as, auction sales ; an offer of a reward (whether the service must have been rendered after knowledge of the offer of a reward is unset tled; see Ans. Contr. *24) ; an advertisement in railroad time-tables; letters of credit; of fers to receive subscriptions for stocks or bonds. -An offer of a stock of goods for sale on bids is not such an offer that a person who makes the highest bid is entitled to them (L. 11. 5 C. P. 561). An offer may be determined—by lapse of a specified time; by lapse of a reasonable time for accepting; by failure to comply with the terms of the offer as to the mode of acceptance; by the death of either party before acceptance ; by revo cation before acceptance ; Hollingsworth, Contr. II.
The announcement of a scholarship compe tition is not an offer;• [1895] I Ch. 480. quotation of a price is not, ordinarily, an offer, but an invitation to make one; [1905] 2 Ir. 617 ; see [1893] A. C. 552.
A signed order for goods given to a travel ing salesman and sent to his employers, who had the right to accept or reject it, was, un til acceptance, merely an offer to buy, and the shipment of the goods alone with an in voice making different terms of payment did not constitute a contract ; Baird v. Pratt, 148 Fed. 825, 78 C. C. A. 515, 10 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1116; Northwest Thresher Co. v. Kubicek, 82 Neb. 485, 118 N. W. 94.
A mental determination to accept an offer, and acts done in pursuance thereof, do not constitute an acceptance ; New v. Ins. Co., 171 Ind. 33, 85 N. E. 703, 131 Am. St. Rep. 245.
If a person making an offer expressly or impliedly intimates in his offer that it will be sufficient to act on the proposal without communicating acceptance to him, perform ance of the condition is acceptance notification ; [1877] 2 A. C. 690.
The ordinary rules of proposal and accept-. ance do not apply to promises embodied in a deed; Poll. Contr. 52; such promise is oiler ative without acceptance; L. R. 2 H. L. 296; but if the promisee refuses his assent with out formality when the promise comes to his knowledge, the contract is avoided; Poll. Contr. 53, on the authority-of 3 Co. Rep. 26; L. R. 2 H. L. 312. If the proposer dies be fore his proposal is accepted, that is a revo cation of the offer ; Poll. Contr. 41; though there is said to be no distinct authority to show whether notice to the other party is ma terial or not ; id.
There is a material distinction between the acceptance of an offer which asks for a promise and of an offer which asks for an act as the condition for the offer becoming a promise; the acceptance of the former must be communicated to the proposer, but the latter, it seems, need not. In the former case the proposed contract is called bilateral, in the latter unilateral; Poll. Contr. 34.
The settled rule of law is said to be that if a person communicates his acceptance of an offer within a reasonable time after the offer has been made, and if within a reason able time of the acceptance being communi cated no variation has been made by either party in the terms of the offer so made and accepted, the acceptance must be taken to be simultaneous with the offer, and both to gether as constituting such an agreement as the court will execute; 3 Mer. 441, per Lord Eldon, quoted in the preface to 6th Edition, Leake, Contracts.