Why? CLARK, B. Often the essence of good business is the use of superior knowledge. 21 The first plaintiff must have realised at the outset that he would have to explain with a certain measure of credibility the purport and significance of all his Internet communications between 1.00am and 3.00am on 13January 2003. 7191 RSS High Court Expand/Collapse. I agree that this exception should be kept within a very narrow compass. They proceeded to file their amendments to the statement of claim as if leave had already been given. 78 In a Channel NewsAsia report datelined 15January 2003, it was reported that: Two of the customers, Mark Yeow and Malcolm Tan, have already spoken to their lawyers. At the very least, it has been forcefully asserted that even when a mistake does not result in voiding a contract through the application of common law principles, there remains an independent doctrine of mistake founded in equity which justifies judicial intervention. The decision of V.K. To determine the profit potential, the second plaintiff had to take steps to ascertain the true market price of the laser printer which he did. The preface I do not know in no way detracts from this; the e-mail being addressed to a large group of 54 persons, the first plaintiff would simply not have wanted to commit himself by saying I know. CHWEE KIN KEONG v DIGILANDMALL.COM Pte Ltd (2005) SGCA 2. Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2005] 1 SLR 502: [2005] SGCA 2 Context: This Case deals with the issue of unilateral mistake. As a matter of fairness, allowing amendments at a late stage should usually go hand in hand with granting leave to the other party to adduce further evidence, if necessary. The knowledge that the offer is not meant according to its literal terms simply displaces the objective theory of contract.
Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall Pte Ltd - LawTeacher.net In addition, each of the confirmatory e-mail responses states at the outset: [W]e will be calling you in the near future to deliver the products to the address shown below. He classifies mistake in the following manner at 386: If attention is fixed merely on the factual situations, there are three possible types of mistake: common, mutual and unilateral. There is no doubt that the plaintiffs acted with indecent haste in the dead of the night in placing as many orders as each of them felt their financial resources credibly permitted them to do. 47 Not content with making his own purchases, he woke up his brother and transacted 330 units on his behalf. Even if it were to be held that there is now a general test of unconscionability applicable to all types of mistake, the plaintiffs contentions will not take them far. Certainty in commercial transactions should not be trifled with, as this will inevitably affect how commercial and business exchanges are respected and effected. Take a look at some weird laws from around the world! A party may not snap at an obviously mistaken offer: McMaster. A real product number HP9660A was inserted in the new template as the prototype for which fictional prices were to be changed on the three relevant websites. Doctrines and Institutions of Responsible Government. , In unilateral mistake, only one of the parties is mistaken. It has been a fertile source of academic debate, but in practice it has given rise to a handful of cases that have merely emphasised the confusion of this area of our jurisprudence. 63 It is pertinent he too made web searches using the Google search engine. 33 After his first order, the second plaintiff contacted the fourth and fifth plaintiffs informing them about the laser printers. It is therefore incumbent on the web merchant to protect himself, as he has both the means to do so and knowledge relating to the availability of any product that is being marketed. There could be different considerations. This case is a paradigm example of an error on the human side. I find it inconceivable, to say the least, that the fifth plaintiff would have placed an order for 100 laser printers without the conviction that it was in fact a current market model with a real and substantial resale value. The fact that the acceptance was automatically generated by a computer software cannot in any manner exonerate the defendant from responsibility. In other words, he really wanted to ascertain the true price of the laser printer. The most recent and authoritative pronouncement in this area (per Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers in Shogun Finance Ltd v Hudson [2003] 3 WLR 1371 at [123]) states: A contract is normally concluded when an offer made by one party (the offeror) is accepted by the party to whom the offer has been made (the offeree).
Bulletin_11_2009 - CLJLaw [emphasis added]. in the High Court decision of Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd,2 from the perspective of economics. 6 On Wednesday, 8January 2003 between 3.00pm and 4.00pm, DILs employees conducted a training session at the defendants premises. The complainants had ordered over 100 printers each at this price. Such conduct is akin to that of an unscrupulous commercial predator seeking to take advantage of an error by an unsuspecting prey by pouncing upon it before the latter has an opportunity to react or raise a shield of defence. The first plaintiff introduced him to the other plaintiffs. hahaha means S$132, Desmond 13/01/20 01:43 even $500 is a steal. The contract stands according to the natural meaning of the words used. The issue could be critical where third party rights are in issue as in Shogun. His evidence pertaining to the material points of knowledge and his communications with the other plaintiffs lacked credibility. When pressed as to whether he visited other websites, he said he could not confirm that one way or the other. 88 The fact that the amending party has been tardy or even negligent is a factor that a court can (and in some egregious cases, should) take into account but this is by no means a decisive factor (cf Ketteman v Hansel Properties). The defendant was entitled to stake its entire defence on the basis of common law, though it would have been prudent ex abundanti cautela to have asserted the equitable position in the alternative. As a lawyer, he appears to have been indispensable in the plaintiffs attempts to hold the defendant to the bargain. 114 For good measure, I should allude that the plaintiffs in their written submissions concede that in order to establish that mistake is operative at common law, the defendant has to show in this instant case that the plaintiffs each had actual or constructive knowledge of the mistaken pricing. 40 When the fourth plaintiff responded to the first plaintiffs mass e-mail, he copied his response to the second plaintiff. In Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2004] 2 SLR (R) 594 (" Digilandmall.com "), the plaintiffs concerned placed orders over the Internet for a total of 1,606 Hewlett Packard commercial laser printers on the defendant (seller's) websites. David Baxter Edward Thomas and Peter Sandford Gander v BPE Solicitors (a firm) [2010] EWHC 306 (Ch) Dunlop v Higgins (1848) 1 HLC 381.
Kiat Boon, Daniel SENG - NUS Law It appears to suggest that even if an offer is snapped up, the contract is not void. Delivery was merely a timing issue. 4, 1971, p. 331. Needless to say, he could not satisfactorily explain why his previous solicitors had formed such a view when preparing his affidavit and why he had affirmed the same. This, by an uncanny coincidence, was the same person whom he had intended to consult in the resale of the laser printers a topic that he had discussed with the second plaintiff earlier that morning. As such, I would strongly appeal to you to reconsider your decision. In Chwee Kin Keong v. Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd ,1 one of the defendant's employees mistakenly uploaded the contents of a training template onto the defendant's website, resulting in the retail price of S$3,854 for a commercial laser printer on the website being replaced with the figure S$66. Transactions over websites are almost invariably instantaneous and/or interactive. After the defendant intimated that it would not be delivering the laser printer, he sent an e-mail excoriating it, asserting, inter alia: Myself, and other people who have been disappointed by you decision, will definitely spread word of the companys lack of honour and integrity to everyone we know and all over the internet! Reference this 41 The second plaintiff seems to have redefined the facts to achieve his objective in these proceedings.
Law, Fairness and Economics - Unilateral Mistake in Digilandmall In the absence of proper and full arguments on the issue of which rule is to be preferred, I do not think it is appropriate for me to give any definitive views in these proceedings on this very important issue. Consideration was less than executory and non-existent. The fact that it may have been negligent is not a relevant factor in these proceedings.
Offer and acceptance - The analysis is structured around the Phang, Controversy in Common Mistake [2003] Conv 247; Reynolds, Reconsider the Contract Textbooks (2003) 119LQR 177. The payment mode opted for was cash on delivery. He seemed to suggest that in a number of cases going as far back as, He somewhat muddied the authority of his observations by apparently accepting in, 126 The Australian courts appear to have relied on the views of Lord DenningMR in, 127 The attempt to conflate the concept of common law mistake and the equitable jurisdiction over mistake is understandable but highly controversial. Unfortunately, they mistakenly offered the price at so much per pound in place of so much per piece. While commercial entities ought not to be given a licence to relax their vigilance, the policy considerations in refusing to enforce mistaken agreements militate against attaching undue weight to the carelessness involved in spawning the mistake. There is therefore no pre-condition in law for a mistaken party to show an absence of carelessness to avail himself of this defence; the law precludes a person from seeking to gain an advantage improperly in such circumstances. The web page entitled checkout order confirmation had a notation stating the earliest date on which we can deliver all the products to you is based on the longest estimated time of stock availability plus the delivery lead time. Disclaimer: This work was produced by one of our expert legal writers, as a learning aid to help law students with their studies. There was also no indication that the product was being sold on promotion. This was borne out by the case of Chwee Kin Keong and Others v. Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2004] SGHC 71 where an autogenerated email with "Successful Purchase Confirmation" in its subject . The financial consequences could be considerable. Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2004] 2 SLR(R) 594, Rajah JC (as . While this is the general principle for shop displays, it is open to a merchant to offer by way of an advertisement the mechanics of a unilateral or bilateral contract. The later the amendment, the greater the adverse consequences. There are many different shades of sharp practice or impropriety. SingletonJ held at 568: The offer was wrongly expressed, and the defendants by their evidence, and by the correspondence, have satisfied me that the plaintiff could not reasonably have supposed that that offer contained the offerers real intention. The element of constructive knowledge based upon what a reasonable person ought to know is premised upon that person not being conscious of the error. Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd. Case Nos: Suit 202/2003/E (for the first instance), CA/30/2004 (for the appeal) in the High Court of Singapore (at first instance), Singapore Court of Appeal. The first plaintiffs riposte, should such a situation come to pass, was to sue them lor. The answer on the authorities is a mistake by one party of which the other knew or ought reasonably to have known. They then argue that as equitable defences have not been pleaded, the court has no alternative but to allow the claim. A prospective purchaser is entitled to rely on the terms of the web advertisement. The essence is not so much in the nature of the amendment but rather in the consequences flowing from any amendment to the pleadings. The price for equitable justice is uncertainty. Has an agreement been reached or not? A steady stream of decisions from common law courts indicate a measured but nevertheless distinctly incremental willingness to extend the scope of the exception to not just actual knowledge, but deemed or constructive knowledge as well. He claims he then accessed the US HP website either through a Google web search engine or by abbreviating the url of the HP website. The shopping cart website page carried the insertion call to enquire under the heading Availability of product.