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GAZETTE
JULY-AUGUST
1979
to £ 11,000 and the Plaintiff accepted
this offer whereupon the Plaintiff
drew a cheque for £11,000 payable
to
the
auctioneer» and gave it to them
and the auctioneers had the words:
"Deposit on Park House, Mallow,
subject to contract and title", typed
on the back of it and the Plaintiff and
Mr. O'Sullivan of the auctioneers
signed their names underneath. The
solicitors acting for the Northern
Bank and Intercontinental never sent
the contract to the Plaintiff's solicitor
and when another prospective
purchaser offered £190,000 for the
property those defendants refused to
complete. The High Court (per
Costello J.) had held that a valid
contract existed between the Plaintiff
and the owners and had ordered
specific performance of it. The
Defendants appealed to the Supreme
Court.
Held
(per Kenny J.) that:
(1) the trial Judge was correct in
his conclusion that the con-
versations on Friday, 30 January
1976, and on Saturday, 31
January 1976, constituted a
contract by the Plaintiff to buy
and by the owners to sell the
property to the Plaintiff for
£110,000. The words "subject to
contract and title" were not
introduced into the transaction
until 2 February 1976 when an
oral contract for the sale had al-
ready been made. The Court
referred to the case of
Law
v.
Robert Roberts A Co.
i 19641 I K.
292, on this point.
(2) In principle, when the party
to be charged has written or
dictated a document on or on to
paper which has his name printed
on it he should be regarded as
having adopted a printed name as
his signature and so should be
regarded as having signed the
document. The Court referred to a
passage
in
Wylie's
Irish
Conveyancing Law
(1978 Ed.), at
page 354, and to the English case
of
Tourret
v.
Cripps
(1879) 48
L J . Ch. 567, and the Irish case of
Dyas
v.
Stqfford(1%%2)
9 L.R. Ir.
520. The Court held that the
document of 2 February 1976
was a sufficient note or
memorandum signed by the party
to be charged which complied with
the Irish Statute of Frauds (7
William HI, C. 12, S. 2).
With reference to the Northern Bank
and Intercontinental and their
confirmation of the contract between
the Plaintiff and the owners, the
banking Manager of Intercontinental
learned in April 1976 that the
Plaintiff was claiming that he had a
contract to buy Park House and
lands from the owners at £110,000
but that nothing was being done to
complete the sale. Intercontinental
were concerned about their security
and the banking manager decided to
find out if the Plaintiff was still ready
to pay £110,000 and if he was he
decided to sell the lands to him under
the powers in their mortgage and
power of attorney. Subsequent
correspondence showed conclusively
that the Manager of the Northern
Bank
was
authorised
by
Intercontinental to offer the lands to
the Plaintiff at £110,000 and when
the Plaintiff called to the Northern
Bank on the 18 May 1976 and told
the Manager that he, the Plaintiff,
still wanted to buy the lands at this
price the the Manager of the
Northern Bank dictated a letter
addressed to the Manager of Inter-
continental which read: "I hereby
accept the offer to purchase the
property known as Park House and
lands at Mallow, Co. Cork con-
taining 120 acres, 1 rood, 30.7
perches for a consideration of
£110,000," and the Plaintiff then
signed this letter and his signature
was witnessed by the Manager of the
Northern Bank who subsequently
telephoned the banking Manager of
Intercontinental and read him this
letter of the 18 May. The banking
Manager of Intercontinental ex
pressed his approval of what the
Manager of the Northern Bank nad
done and of this letter. Inter-
continental then instructed their own
solicitors to prepare a contract for
sale of the property and on 8 June
1976 those solicitors wrote to the
Plaintiff's solicitor and the first two
paragraphs of their letter read as
follows:
"We are instructed by our clients
(Intercontinental) that they have
accepted an offer of £110,000
from your client, Patrick Casey
Our clients are selling as
mortgagees pu r s uant to the
powers on that behalf contained in
an Indenture of Mortgage dated
14 November 1975 and a power
of attorney dated 11 February
1975."
While Intercontinental's solicitors
were treating the Plaintiff's letter of
18 May 1976 as an offer and not as
an acceptance of an offer (as it was) it
established the existence of a con-
tractual relationship between the
Plaintiff and Intercontinental. The
contract was subsequently signed by
the Plaintiff but was not completed
by Intercontinental after they were
informed of the subsequent offer of
£190,000. Intercontinental felt that
they were bound to sell at the best
price available and that £110,000
had ceased to be that.
Held
further (per Kenny J.) that:
(3) Intercontinental were in
error in thinking this as on 18
May 1976 it was the best price
and on that date they made an
offer to the Plaintiff to sell at that
price and he accepted it. A
mortgagee who enters into a con-
tract for a sale at a price which all
the circumstances and valuations
show, is, at the date of the
contract, the best price available is
not discharged if a higher price is
offered after the contract is made.
(4) That the High Court Judge
was correct in holding that a valid
oral contract for the sale of lands
at £110,000 was made in May
1976 between the Plaintiff and
Intercontinental. The Order of the
High Court which decreed specific
performance of the contract
between the Plaintiff and the
owners and, while finding that a
valid contract was made between
the Plaintiff and Intercontinental,
did not make an order for specific
performance of it "at present",
was the correct order to make, as
there cannot be two orders for
specific performance against two
defendants.
Patrick Casey v. Irish Inter-
continental Bank Limited, The
No r t he rn Bank Limited, Paul
O'Connell and Conleth Dunne,
Supreme Court (per Kenny J., with
Henchy and
Parke JJ.) - 13
February 1979 — unreported.
Summaries of judgments prepared by
John F. Buckley,
Mary
Finlay,
Colum Gavan Duffy, Peter Quinlan
and edited by Michael V. O'Mahony.