question archive On Monday, Andy, a gallery owner, placed an advertisement in a weekly painting magazine offering to sell a Mona Lisa duplicate painting for $500,000, and will accept cheque transaction
Subject:LawPrice: Bought3
On Monday, Andy, a gallery owner, placed an advertisement in a weekly painting magazine offering to sell a Mona Lisa duplicate painting for $500,000, and will accept cheque transaction. Mrs. Wong saw the advertisement on Tuesday and immediately posted a letter to Andy saying that she would be willing to pay $400,000 cash and giving her work email address. On Wednesday morning, Andy replied by email: "Cheque preferred for advertised amount. Yours for that unless I hear from you to the contrary". On receipt of the email, Mrs. Wong posted a cheque for $500,000. However, at 7pm on Wednesday evening Andy decided not to sell the painting to Mrs. Wong and sent an email to her to inform her so. The following Thursday and Friday were public holidays and Mrs. Wong did not see the email until the following Monday when she returned to work. Mrs. Wong's letter arrived at Andy's address on Thursday but was not opened by him until Friday morning. On Thursday, Andy sold the painting to Dan for $400,000 in cash. Mrs. Wong now claims that Andy is in breach of contract.
Required:
Discuss if there is a legally enforceable contract between Andy and Mrs. Wong and if there is a contract, has Andy breached the contract?