Question: Hammer, an auctioneer, sold a collection of paintings by auction. Each painting was fully described in the catalogue.

When Hammer invited bids for Lot 15 described as Country Scene, artist unknown his assistant Mallet inadvertently held up Lot 16 instead for the bidders to see. Lot 16 was described in the catalogue as Village Life, (?) school of Brushman, but Sickle, who was sitting in the front row, immediately recognized it as a lost masterpiece by Brushman himself. No other bidders noticed Mallets error and Sickles bid of $25 was accepted by Hammer. When Hammer realized what had happened he refused to let Sickle have the painting, which is worth $5,000. Advise Sickle. Answer: In this case, Hammers assistant, Mallet had made a mistake where he inadvertently held up lot 16 instead of lot 15. Can we conclude it as unilateral mistake? Unilateral mistake only occurs where only one person make mistake. Initially, this is true that where Mallet had made unilateral mistake, because he had been exhibited wrong painting in the first place. However, Sickle has immediately recognized this painting is a lost masterpiece by Brushman itself. Does it change the situation where this is no more unilateral mistake but mutual mistake? In Raffles v Wichelhaus, the parties are at cross purpose, in other words, the offer and acceptance do not correspond. Or, it could be said both parties has made different mistakes. How does mutual mistake work in this case? This is straightforward because at its simplest, Mallet had mistakenly exhibited wrong painting, where, Sickle had mistakenly act this as lot 15 instead of lot 16. Could Sickle still argue whether this is unilateral mistake rather than mutual mistake? It is submitted that the answer would be No. This is because if the mistake is only made by Hammer, then, it could be unilateral mistake only rather than mutual mistake. However, Hammer could be argued that Sickle has snapped at a mistake offer by Hammer. On this ground, the supporting case would be Hartog v Colin and Shields, in this case, the defendants mistakenly offered the plaintiff a price per pound instead of a price per piece which they intended to, the court ruled that there was no contract, because the buyers were aware of the sellers mistake, as customs and previous negotiations would make him aware of it. However, the distinguished case in Raffles v Wichelhaus which applied to this scenario, where, the claimant thought the cotton in question was on the Peerless ship sailing in October when the defendant thought it was on a ship with the same name that sailed in December. The court ruled that there was no contract as there was no consensus ad idem which translate into meeting of minds. If this case do not construe as unilateral mistake or mutual mistake, could it be any other mistake? Yes, it could be mistake as to quality. If it is mistake as to quality, a first issue that we should consider is Is the mistake as to Quality fundamental? In Bell v Lever Brothers, the plaintiff were entitled to the 50,000 pounds compensation for the termination of their contract of employment, but they had forgotten that they committed breaches of their contract

of employment and could be dismissed without compensation, but were under the impression that the contract was valid. The court ruled that the mistake was no sufficiently fundamental to the agreement to render the contract void. In the others words, which also applied in this case, the contract is unlikely to be avoided because of the decision in Bell v Lever Brothers. However, the court of appeal described the test to determine whether or not the mistake was fundamental by What did he buy? if the answer would was that he bought a painting, then there would be no fundamental mistake because he got a painting. Whereas, it could be difference if he answered that he bought a constable painting. In Leaf v International Galleries, both the claimant and the defendant thought that the painting in question was a painting by a constable. The court ruled that the mistake was not fundamental, because there was no essential mistake about the subject matter (a painting), which applied to this test. Its same goes to in this case, where, the subject matter is difference which this will render the contract void. In equity, the supporting case would be Solle v Butcher, in this case, Lord Denning thought that the test in Bell v Lever Brothers was extremely strict and introduced equity in an attempt to reduce the hardship of the common law rule. However, in Great Peace case, the court of appeal held that there were no separate rules in equity on common mistake, and the case of Solle v Butcher was considered wrong and Lord Dennings judgment was criticized. The court thought that allowing equity to render contract voidable when the contract was found to be valid in common law despite the mistake amounted to equity conflicting with the common law rather than supplementing it. In others words, if the Great Peace case is followed, however, the court has no ability to rescind the contract on the grounds of mistake in equity. In a nutshell, this case is arguable where there is no certain and so the position must also be considered in various scopes such as equity.