Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Boots Cash Chemists (Southern) Ltd [1953] EWCA Civ 6 is a famous English contract law decision on the nature of an offer. The Court held that the display of a product in a store with a price attached is not sufficient to be considered an offer, but rather is an invitation to treat.
Video Pharmaceutical Society of GB v Boots Cash Chemists (Southern) Ltd
Facts
Boots Cash Chemists had just instituted a new way for its customers to buy certain medicines. Shoppers could now pick drugs off the shelves in the chemist and then pay for them at the till. Before then, all medicines were stored behind a counter mea a shop employee would get what was requested. The Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain objected and argued that under the Pharmacy and Poisons Act 1933, that was an unlawful practice. Under s 18(1), a pharmacist needed to supervise at the point where "the sale is effected" when the product was one listed on the 1933 Act's schedule of poisons. The Society argued that displays of goods were an "offer" and when a shopper selected and put the drugs into their shopping basket, that was an "acceptance", the point when the "sale is effected"; as no pharmacist had supervised the transaction at this point, Boots was in breach of the Act. Boots argued that the sale was effected only at the till.
Maps Pharmaceutical Society of GB v Boots Cash Chemists (Southern) Ltd
Judgment
Both the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court and the Court of Appeal sided with Boots. They held that the display of goods was not an offer. Rather, by placing the goods into the basket, it was the customer that made the offer to buy the goods. This offer could be either accepted or rejected by the pharmacist at the cash desk. The moment of the completion of contract was at the cash desk, in the presence of the supervising pharmacist. Therefore, there was no violation of the Act.
Somervell LJ said,
Birkett LJ followed on by saying,
Subsequent legal developments
This case upheld the legal concept of invitation to treat.
The concept continues to apply in many situations, for example for things outside a goods' seller's control (such as a customer switching price tags or product recall) and where it would be illegal to carry out the transaction without supervision such as potentially dangerous goods.
Many jurisdictions have since enacted legislation in consumer protection or fair trading that make advertisements/store price tickets with a product in stock a legally binding offer and/or a trading standards offence for the retailer to refuse to carry out the advertised transaction (bait advertising or misleading/deceptive conduct).
See also
- Contract
- Offer and acceptance
- Invitation to treat
- Partridge v Crittenden (an instance of an advertisement as an invitation to treat)
- Fisher v Bell (an instance of products being displayed on a shop window as an invitation to treat)
- Chapelton v Barry Urban District Council (more difficult to reconcile with these cases, the court refused to incorporate an exclusion clause on the back of a ticket which the court found was a receipt rather than an ordinary ticket)
Notes
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments