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Email negotiations a legal contract when taken to small claims? (COURTS, LAWYERS & LITIGATION)

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 11:15:00 GMT
Tags: auction, claims, contract, courts, ebay, email, individual, item, law, lawyers, legal, litigation, negotiations, offers, selected

I had an item posted on Ebay with a Buy It Now of $1,099 but I had the
Best Offers option selected. During the auction I had an individual
offer $700. I declined and stated that the lowest I could accept was
$950. The individual then made an offer of $800 which expired when the
auction ended on a Thursday.

After the auction ended the same individual emailed me directly and
offered $950 and said he lived close to me and could pick the item up.
Of course this was completely outside of the Ebay system. I told him we
would be willing to accept $950 but that we could not move forward with
the transaction until Tuesday as we were going to be out of town. We
never sent him an invoice or agreed on terms of payment as he wanted to
pay with Paypal and I preferred payment in person with cash or money
order. When we got back on Tuesday we contacted him by email but got no
response. Upon checking our emails we noticed another individual
contacted us in regards to a previous listing for the same item on
another auction site. He offered us more money for the item but we
would have to ship the 100 pound somewhat delicate item to him. I
figured we would give the local individual the opportunity to match the
offer since it would be a simpler transaction. On Thursday he answered
my email by stating we had a contract and that he was going to take me
to small claims court, report me to the BBB, contact Ebay claiming I
violated their terms, and a whole slew of other threats. He has since
sent me multiple other emails threatening legal action if I did not
sell him the item by a certain date.

My question is does he have a valid case against me? I had no idea just
communicating with someone by email and discussing the terms of a sale
could be considered a contract. Can I really enter into a contract with
someone when I don't even know it???

Thank you,

Damian

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  • Comments
  • Sat, 04 Feb 2006 13:24:00 GMT(1)
  • TekXtreme wrote:
    [wants to know if he has a contract to buy / sell]
    I told him we would be willing to accept $950 but that we could not move forward with the transaction until Tuesday as we were going to be out of town. We never sent him an invoice or agreed on terms of payment as he wanted to pay with Paypal and I preferred payment in person with cash or money order.

    I think right here you spell out that you have an agreement to buy and
    sell but are a bit hazy on certain specifics. If he'd been unavailable
    for a long period of time, then I can see a reasonable person
    unilaterally canceling this deal and having justification for doing so.
    However, here no such condition existed.

    In a perfectly reasonable time period after your return, he contacted
    you to finish the deal on the price BOTH of you agreed to. If he 100%
    insists on PayPal and you won't accept it, then that may cancel the
    deal, but you never gave the guy a chance to negotiate the hazy portions
    of your bargain.

    I think you must sell it to him for this price unless he is very
    unreasonable about some other detail.

    -paul
    ianal
  • Tue, 21 Feb 2006 13:35:00 GMT(2)
  • Sat, 18 Feb 2006 13:54:24 -0500 from Larry <LRLake@lawknowledge.org.aol.com>: It is my general unstanding that anything in writing, including bonified e-mail, can be used to establish the relationship between the parties and their intentions regarding the transaction.

    Could someone tell me, please, how to "bonify" an e-mail? :-)

    No, I'm not serious. It's always funny to see someone write a term
    when their only familiarity with it is a memory of how it sounds.

    To the PP: The term is "bona fide", from Latin meaning (roughly) "in
    good faith".

    --
    If you e-mail me from a fake address, your fingers will drop off.

    I am not a lawyer; this is not legal advice. When you read anything
    legal on the net, always verify it on your own, in light of your
    particular circumstances. You may also need to consult a lawyer.

    Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
    http://OakRoadSystems.com
  • Thu, 09 Feb 2006 16:04:00 GMT(3)
  • David Chesler wrote: Paul Cassel wrote: I think right here you spell out that you have an agreement to buy and sell but are a bit hazy on certain specifics. How can there be a contract without those specifics?
    To answer both of you, my opinion not having heard the conversation is
    that the parties agreed to an exchange, but left out some specifics. For
    example, if I agree to buy a car, but don't say if the money will be
    paid in check or cash, but I and seller agree to the buy and sell,
    that's enough.

    Here w/o more I can't say more, but the OP did NOT say they hung up on
    that detail. If he had, then I'd agree with you two.

    I'm speculating as you are too. If we questioned both buyer and seller,
    we may come to different conclusions.
  • Sun, 05 Feb 2006 15:14:00 GMT(4)
  • Paul Cassel wrote: I think right here you spell out that you have an agreement to buy and sell but are a bit hazy on certain specifics.

    How can there be a contract without those specifics?

    There is a local car dealer and I sometimes stop by and ask for
    a price on a car out front. Sometimes the price is right and
    I would buy it if certain conditions outside the dealer's
    control (related to my income) occur. My eager son asks me
    "Can't you ask him to hold onto it until [event]?" And I tell
    him that we had an expression back home, "Money talks and
    b...s... walks."
    Without a credible commitment from me I can't expect the dealer to
    tie up inventory and lose potential sales.
    I think you must sell it to him for this price unless he is very unreasonable about some other detail.

    If the situation were reversed, and it were the would-be buyer who
    no longer wants to complete the sale (either because he insists on
    Paypal, or because he had remorse and was glad he hadn't completed
    the sale, or because he didn't trust OP would complete the sale and
    so bought a substitute item in the intervening time) and OP was unable
    to find another buyer willing to pay $950 (plus packing and shipping),
    would OP have had a valid breach of contract sale against the
    would-be buyer?

    --
    - David Chesler <chesler@lawknowledge.org.post.harvard.edu>
    Iacta alea est
  • Sat, 04 Feb 2006 13:24:00 GMT(5)
  • In article <0ra7u1lemrdnl5pgmuai9laqd00rcrm684@lawknowledge.org.4ax.com>,
    TekXtreme <dmccue69@lawknowledge.org.excite.com> wrote:
    After the auction ended the same individual emailed me directly andoffered $950 and said he lived close to me and could pick the item up.Of course this was completely outside of the Ebay system. I told him wewould be willing to accept $950 but that we could not move forward withthe transaction until Tuesday as we were going to be out of town. Wenever sent him an invoice or agreed on terms of payment as he wanted topay with Paypal and I preferred payment in person with cash or moneyorder.
    On Thursday he answeredmy email by stating we had a contract
    My question is does he have a valid case against me?

    Did he ever agree to give you cash or a money order? If not, there
    was never any meeting of the minds. (If so, it depends on further
    issues.)

    Seth
  • Sun, 05 Feb 2006 15:14:00 GMT(6)
  • In article <5n6au19mln9n1lol67lm08n0lmep61stc3@lawknowledge.org.4ax.com>,
    Paul Cassel <pcasselplus2@lawknowledge.org.comcast.net> wrote:
    In a perfectly reasonable time period after your return, he contactedyou to finish the deal on the price BOTH of you agreed to. If he 100%insists on PayPal and you won't accept it, then that may cancel thedeal, but you never gave the guy a chance to negotiate the hazy portionsof your bargain.

    If some negotiation still needs to take place, then how can there
    already be a contract?

    Seth
  • Wed, 15 Feb 2006 06:40:00 GMT(7)
  • In article <bk1du1l4vmte0q7fkrmb5sls73cmba0ect@lawknowledge.org.4ax.com>,
    Stuart A. Bronstein <spamtrap@lawknowledge.org.sbcglobal.net> wrote:sethb@lawknowledge.org.panix.com (Seth Breidbart) wrote: Did he ever agree to give you cash or a money order? If not, there was never any meeting of the minds. (If so, it depends on further issues.)There can be a meeting of the minds even though every specific detailis not agreed to in advance. Method of payment is generallysomething that is not required to be agreed on before a contract isformed. The law will presume payment may be made in any reasonableway.

    In this particular case, what would happen if the original poster
    replied "OK, I'll sell it to you for $950 cash if you bring it to me
    within 2 days (and tell the other guy he's out of luck", and the
    original bidder declined to provide cash and kept insisting on PayPal?

    What would happen if he insisted on that and there were no second
    buyer?

    Seth
  • Fri, 17 Feb 2006 08:57:00 GMT(8)
  • sethb@lawknowledge.org.panix.com (Seth Breidbart) wrote: Stuart A. Bronstein <spamtrap@lawknowledge.org.sbcglobal.net> wrote:sethb@lawknowledge.org.panix.com (Seth Breidbart) wrote: Did he ever agree to give you cash or a money order? If not, there was never any meeting of the minds. (If so, it depends on further issues.)There can be a meeting of the minds even though every specificdetail is not agreed to in advance. Method of payment isgenerally something that is not required to be agreed on before acontract is formed. The law will presume payment may be made inany reasonable way. In this particular case, what would happen if the original poster replied "OK, I'll sell it to you for $950 cash if you bring it to me within 2 days (and tell the other guy he's out of luck", and the original bidder declined to provide cash and kept insisting on PayPal?

    Whenever you say you'll do something "if..." it's a counter offer and
    not an acceptance. So no contract.

    In this case it's not clear whether there's a contract. The OP said
    that he responded to the offer that he "would be" willing to accept
    the offer but not until the following Tuesday. I think it's slightly
    over the line indicating there's a contract, but it's a very close
    question in this case.

    Stu
  • Thu, 09 Feb 2006 16:04:00 GMT(9)
  • sethb@lawknowledge.org.panix.com (Seth Breidbart) wrote: Paul Cassel <pcasselplus2@lawknowledge.org.comcast.net> wrote:In a perfectly reasonable time period after your return, hecontacted you to finish the deal on the price BOTH of you agreedto. If he 100% insists on PayPal and you won't accept it, thenthat may cancel the deal, but you never gave the guy a chance tonegotiate the hazy portions of your bargain. If some negotiation still needs to take place, then how can there already be a contract?

    Formation of a contract only requires agreement on essential terms.
    Other terms are can be implied on the basis of what is reasonable
    under the circumstances.

    Stu
  • Sun, 05 Feb 2006 15:14:00 GMT(10)
  • sethb@lawknowledge.org.panix.com (Seth Breidbart) wrote:
    Did he ever agree to give you cash or a money order? If not, there was never any meeting of the minds. (If so, it depends on further issues.)

    There can be a meeting of the minds even though every specific detail
    is not agreed to in advance. Method of payment is generally
    something that is not required to be agreed on before a contract is
    formed. The law will presume payment may be made in any reasonable
    way.

    Stu
  • Sat, 18 Feb 2006 10:54:00 GMT(11)
  • OP wonders whether he has a contract based on e-mails...

    Because this is a sale of goods covered by the statutory rules of the
    Uniform Commercial Code as adopted by the State's statutes. The rules
    are governed, regarding contracts, by the actions of the parties in the
    context of what is normally considered reasonable and customary
    practice for the business involved.

    Many of the common law "contract" rules do not apply to commercial
    transactions for "goods". Much is implied by the actions of the
    parties. The common law "meeting of the minds" test could be inferred
    by how the parties approached the transaction under the UCC. Also,
    whether the changes to payment and delivery would constitute a Counter
    offer in the common law sense.

    It is my general unstanding that anything in writing, including
    bonified e-mail, can be used to establish the relationship between the
    parties and their intentions regarding the transaction.

    Larry
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