A unilateral mistake is where only one party to a contract is mistaken as to the terms or subject-matter contained in a contract. In contract law, one must first distinguish between mechanical calculations and business error when looking at unilateral mistake. For mechanical calculations, a party may be able to set aside the contract on these grounds provided that the other party does not try to take advantage of the mistake, or 'snatch up' the offer (involving a bargain that one did not intend to make, betrayed by an error in arithmetic, or something like that). This will be seen by an objective standard, or if a reasonable person would be able to know that the mistake would not make sense to one of the parties. Unless one of the parties 'snatched up' the one-sided offer, courts will otherwise uphold the contract. When a party is guilty of a error in business judgment, there is no relief.
Non-laywer explanation: When a customer sees a price that is obviously wrong, they can't scoop up the "scrivner's error" and force the other party to complete the deal. Example: those 40" flatscreen HDTVs that Best Buy accidently put up on their site for $9.99 when it was supposed to be $1999.99. However, here $60 was reasonable. It wasn't like $6.00 when it was supposed to be $60. I'd argue that here was a unilateral mistake on Froggy's part where the buyer wasn't trying to snatch up an obvious error to make a bargain. It was an error of business judgment, and for the people that prepaid Froggy should have to suck the $20.
*FWIW, this is not legal advice. I'm not licensed to practice law in Georgia (yet)*
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-08-21 12:15 pm (UTC)Non-laywer explanation: When a customer sees a price that is obviously wrong, they can't scoop up the "scrivner's error" and force the other party to complete the deal. Example: those 40" flatscreen HDTVs that Best Buy accidently put up on their site for $9.99 when it was supposed to be $1999.99. However, here $60 was reasonable. It wasn't like $6.00 when it was supposed to be $60. I'd argue that here was a unilateral mistake on Froggy's part where the buyer wasn't trying to snatch up an obvious error to make a bargain. It was an error of business judgment, and for the people that prepaid Froggy should have to suck the $20.
*FWIW, this is not legal advice. I'm not licensed to practice law in Georgia (yet)*