For a while now I've been doing some Legal research related to a lot of personal projects I'm doing. After doing the day's work I try to make my daily post for Hive but recently I've been wishing I could post something from the day's research instead so I'll kill two birds with one stone.
And today's going to be the day, I've found something I think is interesting enough to make a lil post about. It's about some interesting Legal provisions I came across.
Contract Law and the Interesting Offer and Acceptance Provision
In law a contract is created when an offer is made and it is followed by acceptance.
Acceptance does not always have to be by words, the simple conduct of the parties can constitute acceptance but it depends on the actions, though. For example a taxi driver tells you $200 for the trip and you get in without saying anything, that is clearly acceptance so you both now have a contract enforceable by law.
Now there's an interesting type of contract, one where a person offers a reward for information, bounty or something like that.
Say a man offers a $50 reward for anyone who finds his dog. In English common law, if you didn't know that such a reward was offered and you find and return the dog without knowing about the reward then you are not entitled to the reward.
Crazy, isn't it? Like the law would not take your side on this matter simply because you didn't know the offer existed.
Common sense is actually against this Common Law, goddammit. But it is the law and cases have been decided like this.
In a case called Gibbons vs Proctor the court did not follow this law and so much criticism have been published by Legal scholars against the court for not following it.
My country Nigeria follows English Common Law except where we've enacted local laws to take their place. In the course of my research I found the Nigerian laws that says fuck those English provisions.
These provisions say that even if the finder did not know about the reward he is entitled to the reward and can go to court to claim it. Beautiful, isn't it?
The End
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Thank you!
Law of contract, an interesting read