ELIZABETH ALEXANDER v The EARL and COUNTESS of DUNMORE (Court of Session)

Elizabeth Alexander raised this action before the Sheriff of Stirlingshire against the defenders, concluding for wages and board wages, from Martinmas 1826 to Whitsunday 1827, under the following circumstances:

Even after the letter was received by Lady Agnew, the agreement was not completed until her Ladyship, in consequence of the authority given her, had actually engaged the pursuer. Before the actual engagement took place, the pursuer was at liberty to have accepted of another offer; the receipt of the defender's letter could not have prevented her doing so: this could not have been the case if the pursuer were to be held in law previously to have made an offer, which was accepted of by the letter of 5th November.

In this case both letters were delivered to the pursuer by the same person,—they were received by her at the same moment. They formed one communication; the import of which being, that Lady Dunmore, being otherwise provided for, did not require the pursuer's services, sufficiently indicated that no agreement had been concluded, and that, even if an offer was held to have been made, that that offer was not accepted.

The pursuer in this Court has not attempted to support the Sheriff's view. But assuming that Lady Agnew's letter, of the 2d of November, contained an offer, on the part of the pursuer, and that Lady Dunmore's letter of the 5th was an acceptance of that offer, she contends that the contract was completed, so as to bar resiling, either by the writing or putting that letter into the post-office, or at least by its being received by Lady Agnew.

Even if the letter of the 5th could be viewed as an acceptance, it seems impossible to hold that it was sent to Lady Agnew as mandatary of the pursuer, so that the receipt of it by her completed the bargain. The writer plainly constitutes Lady Agnew as her mandatary in what was to be done, although it may be possible to hold that, by ‘engaging the pursuer,’ she meant that she should communicate to her the acceptance contained in her letter, and this communication was therefore necessary to perfect the location.’