Yes, there has to be a meeting of the minds, but the question is how much meeting of the minds.
There does NOT have to be a meeting of the minds that "I'm here forming a legal contract that if I don't perform could land me up in court."
Instead, the meeting of the minds has to be such as to make the elements of a contract clear.
"will you sell me your watch for $50?"
"Yes."
There's a meeting of the minds. Lots of things are unstated. Is the $50 Canadian or American or Australian? When will the transaction take place -- if I now say "Okay, give me the $50 now and I'll give you the watch in 10 years" consistent with the agreement? A court would probably say no. Is there a requirement that the watch be running? Not unless there is some statute to the contrary -- generally caveat emptor. Does the band come with the watch? If there were an argument about the contract, a court would have to sort all these things out. But it would almost certainly say that yes, there was a meeting of the minds on a contract for A to sell the watch to B for $50, and it would almost certainly enforce that contract.
And if B offered $50 Canadian, assuming this happened on the streets of a US city, A could refuse to hand over the watch and sue B for $50 American, and win, because even though that wasn't specified in the agreement, the Court will insert that as a reasonably assumed term of the contract.
On the other hand, if the conversation went
"Will you sell me your watch?"
"Well, yes, but I don't know how much I would want,"
then there's no contract because there is no meeting of the minds on a central element of the contract, the price.
So what you need is a meeting of the minds on enough elements to make a clear contract, even though there are many potentially unresolved issues that might bring you before a court to resolve the details you didn't agree on.
Gotta go meet a friend for lunch who on your suggestion I will sue if he doesn't show up. <g> |
