Felthouse v. Bindley

"Felthouse v. Bindley" (1862), 11 Cb (NS) 869, is the leading English case in contract law where the long-standing maxim that "silence does not amount to acceptance" was first expressed.

Facts

Mr Felthouse wanted to buy one of his nephew's horses. Felthouse wrote to his nephew who wanted to sell the horse to him, stating that "If I hear no more about him, I consider the horse mine..." Subsequently, there was no notice from his nephew and Felthouse considered the horse his own.

The horse was not delivered to uncle Felthouse and later there was an auction at the nephew's property for the other livestock. The nephew told the auctioneer, Mr Bindley, not to sell the horse at the auction as it was already sold to his uncle. By mistake, Bindley sold it anyway.

Felthouse sued the auctioneer in the tort of conversion however the action could only succeed if it could be shown that Felthouse actually owned the horse.

Judgement

The court ruled that Felthouse did not have ownership of the horse as there was no acceptance of the contract. Acceptance must be communicated clearly and cannot be imposed due to silence of one of the parties. The uncle had no right to impose a sale through silence whereby the contract would only fail by repudiation. Though the nephew expressed interest in completing the sale there was no communication of that intention.