A certain Jackie enters an antique shop in London Issues Mistaken Identity She negotiates the purchase of a gold watch worth E500,000 and in the process says to the shop owner "my name is Jackie Collins, you know. as in the novelist' The owner is star- struck and accepts a cheque which turns out to be worthless. · Distinguishing between mistake as to identity and mistake as to attributes. . Contracts made at a distance (not face-to face). · Contracts made face-to-face (inter praesentes). · Contracts made through an intermediary. . Justification of the current law and questions of fairness. General rule In order to be operative, the mistake must relate to the identity of the person with whom you are contracting, not his or her attributes. .Is this a meaningful distinction? 'A distinction without a difference' (Lord Denning, in Lewis v Averay) Contracts not made face-to-face (written contracts) Boulton v Jones (1857) . Defendant sent an order to one 'Brocklehurst' with whom he had dealt regularly and had a set off arrangement. · Brocklehurst had however transferred his business to his foreman Boulton, who then fulfilled the order. Jones was not aware of this transfer. . Defendant resisted a claim for payment by the foreman based on the argument of 'set-off'.
. Held: there was no contract between Boulton and Jones, Boulton must have known that Jones wanted to contract with Brocklehurst whom he sent his order to. . The identity of Brocklehurst was important to the defendant and the contract was void. . Only a person to whom an offer is made to can accept. Cundy v Lindsay [1878] · Establishes that 'contracts in writing will be presumed to be between parties identified in writing'. · Blenkarn, a rogue, ordered 250 dozen handkerchiefs from Lindsay and signed the letter as Blenkiron & Co who was well known to Lindsay. . Lindsay delivered the items to the address on the later. · Blenkarn now sold them to Cundy. . HOL: Contract was void, and Cundy had no title to the goods. . There was no contract between Blenkarn and Lindsay because Blenkarn was not mentioned in the correspondences. King's Norton Metal Co. v Edridge, Merrett & Co. (1897) . A rogue made an order using a fictional company Hallam & Co. from the King's Norton. · King's Norton presumed they were dealing with Hallam & Co and delivered the items. . The rogue sold the items to defendant, who now claimed they had good title to the items. . Held: Contract was voidable. There was a valid contract between the rogue and King's Norton. . Because Hallam & Co did not exist, the only possible person they were contracting with was the rogue. . Position will be different if Hallam & Co was a separate entity. .Mistaken party must be able to show who it was that was the intended contracting party.
Contracts made face-to-face. . Law presumes that owners of goods intend to contract with the person in