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. He is described by his counsel in submissions as a prudent and careful person. Disclaimer: This work was produced by one of our expert legal writers, as a learning aid to help law students with their studies. He then carried out some checks on the Yahoo search engine to ascertain whether the printer model existed and whether the laser printer could be sold at more than $66. 1.47K subscribers Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2005] Facts The defendant, Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd, were an online IT company that sold related software and hardware from. The unconstrained exchange that followed between the two is both revealing and compelling. The first, second and third plaintiffs have been friends for a long time and are bound by common business interests. The first and fifth plaintiffs ordered exactly a hundred laser printers each. I categorically reject their evidence in so far as it attempts to hermetically compartmentalise their knowledge and discussions. The ETA is essentially permissive. There are in this connection two schools of thought. It is important not to force into a Procrustean bed principles that have to be modified or discarded when considering novel aspects of the Internet. Neither party raised any objections. He appeared to be consummately familiar with Internet practices and was forced to concede that he thought it was weird and unusual when he saw the number 55 on the relevant webpages in place of the actual product description. I found their attempts to play down the impact of the statements which they had, to all intents and purposes, willingly and deliberately made earlier, unconvincing. Though the six plaintiffs accounted for only 18 of these purchase orders, they figure prominently among the 11 individuals who ordered more than 50 laser printers. 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. The neutral citation of the case Chwee Kin Keong and others v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd is as follows: This citation tells us that this was the 71st case in 2004 decided in the Singapore High Court. See now, also, 153 These statements of jurisprudence are of cardinal importance in understanding and fashioning the law of contract. In his initial affidavit he admitted wondering whether the price was a mistake after his first order was placed. In light of this, the parties did not address me on the issue of when the contract was formed, though this appears to be a relevant issue depending on which rule is adopted. 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. This is an inane argument. In fact, he and the fourth plaintiff have jointly conceptualised and implemented an Internet-related business. When the defendants discovered this mistake on their website, they sent an email to the complainants to say they would not be fulfilling this order. From time to time they communicate with each other, 4 The defendant is a company that sells information technology (IT) related products over the Internet to consumers. v . Introduction The decision of V.K. A court is not likely to take a sympathetic view of such manner of amendment. He said he had by then discovered from his Internet searches that the price of the laser printer was in the region of $3,000. Do you have a 2:1 degree or higher? 106 In the Singapore context, the first port of call when confronted with issues of contract law is inevitably Professor Andrew Phangs treatise on Cheshire, Fifoot and Furmstons Law of Contract (2nd Singapore and Malaysian Ed, 1998). This cannot be right. 124 A number of decisions over the last five decades emanating from several common law jurisdictions even go so far as to suggest that with the integration of the courts of common law and equity, equitable principles now hold sway and that earlier common law decisions need reinterpretation. Secondly, widening the scope of mistake, unilateral or otherwise, under the rubric of equitable mistake will, with its malleability, only encourage uncertainty and litigation. Date of Verdicts: 12 April 2004, 13 January 2005. Thus the task of ascertaining whether the parties have reached agreement as to the terms of a contract can involve quite a complex amalgam of the objective and the subjective and involve the application of a principle that bears close comparison with the doctrine of estoppel. If this rule applies to international sales, is it sensible to have a different rule for domestic sales? These orders were placed at a price of S$66 each, whereas the actual price was S$3,854 each. 75 Each of the automated confirmatory e-mail responses carried under Availability of product the notation call to enquire. 7 At about 3.36pm, Samuel Teo, an employee of DIL, inadvertently uploaded the contents of the training template onto the Digiland commerce website operated by DIL, in place of the test website allocated for the training. Taking into account the nature of the claims, the conduct of these proceedings by the plaintiffs and how the case for the plaintiffs unravelled, it would not, all things considered, be appropriate to interfere with the normal order of costs which ought to follow the result. Phang, Controversy in Common Mistake [2003] Conv 247; Reynolds, Reconsider the Contract Textbooks (2003) 119LQR 177. 131 In a number of cases, including the present, it may not really matter which view is preferred. After placing his second order, he admitted making further searches on the Internet to fortify my view that the price of the $66 per printer was not a mistake He was also the only plaintiff who placed an order on the Digilandmall website. 93 Website advertisement is in principle no different from a billboard outside a shop or an advertisement in a newspaper or periodical. Judgments >> CA The affidavits did not add anything new. This is in contrast to the English position where after several decades, 125 The principal source of this view has been Lord DenningMR. (PDF) Unilateral Mistake in Contract: Five Degrees of - ResearchGate It seems to me that he was trying to tailor his evidence to fit neatly within the legal parameters of the plaintiffs case. In these proceedings, it appears that the purchases made by the sixth plaintiff were not accompanied by a corresponding receipt of acceptances, as his e-mail inbox was full. At 4.15am, he sent an email to the first plaintiff, copied to the second plaintiff, with a happy emoticon following check out the prices here (see [19]. Case Note CONTRACT FORMATION AND MISTAKE IN CYBERSPACE (AGAIN) The 54 The fourth plaintiff admits that he had entertained the idea at the material time that the price posting could have been an error. The complainants had ordered over 100 printers each at this price. It argues that the decision is both fair and economically grounded, and proposes an alternative view to that offered by classical contract law - one that sees fairness intertwined 95 The known availability of stock could be an important distinguishing factor between a physical sale and an Internet transaction. I even went to both the HP Web-Site as well as the DigilandMall Web-site to see if the prices were the same. 143 The stark gaping difference between the price posting and the market price of the laser printer would have made it obvious to any objective person that something was seriously amiss. It is unequivocally unethical conduct tantamount to sharp practice. After referring to a series of leading cases, including the often quoted decision of ThomsonJ in McMaster University v Wilchar Construction Ltd (1971), 22DLR(3d) 9 (Ont HCJ), Chief Justice McLachlin said at p37: One circumstance falling clearly within the equitable jurisdiction of the Court to relieve against mistake is that where one party, knowing of the others mistake as to the terms of an offer, remains silent and concludes a contract on the mistaken terms: Solle, supra; Belle River Community Arena v WJC Kaufman Co (1978), 20OR(2d) 447, 4 BLR 231, 87DLR(3d) 761 (CA). The law will have to organically adapt itself to respond to new challenges without compromising on certainty and fairness. 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. Limit orders: order to be executed only when the desired price is available. While the first plaintiff was the source of the information concerning the price posting, the second plaintiff actively communicated with all of the plaintiffs (save the sixth plaintiff), throughout the material period. The transcript states that the third and the fifth plaintiffs saw a great opportunity and grabbed it. In Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd, the Singapore Court of Appeal was asked to consider if the decision in Great Peace Shipping also had the effect of excluding equity's jurisdiction . This price was much lower than the actual retail price, and had been posted on the defendant's website by mistake. In support of the latter it might be argued that unlike a posting, e-mail communication takes place in a relatively short time frame. The issue could be critical where third party rights are in issue as in Shogun. There is often, but not inexorably, a co-relationship between the timing when the amendment is sought and the adverse consequences for the other party. The decision of V.K. - See also Balfour v. Balfour (1919). 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. The High Court of Australia in Taylor v Johnson purportedly relied on Solle v Butcher, Bell v Lever Brothers, Limited [1932] AC 161, McRae v Commonwealth Disposals Commission (1951) 84CLR 377, all cases of common mistake, to suggest that in unilateral mistake a contracting party cannot assert, by relying on his own mistake, that a contract is void, notwithstanding the issue is fundamental or known to the other side. They have a common interest in bridge and this helped to cement their friendship. Indeed, upon re-examination, he attempted to distance himself from the portion of his affidavit suggesting that the possibility of a genuine mistake had crossed his mind after the first transaction. 154 Interestingly, of the 784 persons who placed 1,008 orders for 4,086 laser printers, only these six plaintiffs have attempted to enforce their purported contractual rights.
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