Powell v Lee 99 LT 284 was an English contract law

English contract law

English contract law is a body of law regulating contracts in England and Wales. With its roots in the lex mercatoria and the activism of the judiciary during the industrial revolution, it shares a heritage with countries across the Commonwealth , and the United States...

 case. The ruling established that acceptance of an offer

Offer and acceptance

Offer and acceptance analysis is a traditional approach in contract law used to determine whether an agreement exists between two parties. Agreement consists of an offer by an indication of one person to another of the offeror's willingness to enter into a contract on certain terms without...

 must be communicated to offeror by offeree himself or authorized agent.

Facts

The claimant applied for a job as headmaster and the school managers decided to appoint him. One of them, acting without authority, told the plaintiff he had been accepted. Later the managers decided to appoint someone else. The claimant brought an action alleging that by breach of a contract to employ him he had suffered damages in loss of salary.

Judgment

The county court judge held that there was no contract as there had been no authorised communication of intention to contract on the part of the body, that is, the managers, alleged to be a party to the contract. This decision was upheld by the King's Bench Division.