A contract between two parties is valid only if one party accepts a legitimate offer from the other; an offer is not ...

Irina on September 23, 2019

@Ryan-Mahabir,

The argument tells us that a contract is valid only if one party accepts a legitimate offer, meaning is an offer is not legitimate there is no valid contract. The argument then tells us how do we define a legitimate offer - an offer is not legitimate if "someone in the position of a party to whom the offer was made," that is just a lengthy way to say offeree, a person who accepts/ rejects the offer - would reasonably believe the offer was made in jest. The argument results in the following logical chains:

offeree believes offer made in jest -> illegitimate offer -> no contract
Contract -> legitimate offer -> offeree believes offer made in jest

The question requires us to identify a statement that conforms to these principles:

(B) Kenta/ offeree accepted Gus/ offeror's offer but Gus unbeknownst to Kenta made an offer in jest, hence contract is invalid. (B) is incorrect because the stimulus is only concerned whether offeree reasonably believes the offer was made in jest, whereas here the offeror made the offer in jest, but the offeree (Kenta) believed it to be legitimate, hence we cannot conclude that the contract is invalid.

(E) The only offer Sal made was not a legitimate one, hence regardless whether it was made in jest, there is no valid contract. This is a correct application of the principles outlined in the stimulus, it is irrelevant whether the offer is made in jest if we know that it is not a legitimate one for whatever reason. Whenever the offer is not legitimate, there is no valid contract per the first premise in the stimulus.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

tomgbean on December 18, 2019

The last addition on your logic train there (on the second line) should be offeree does not believe offer made in jest