Right. In the US, state law holds, but most or all states require “consideration” from both sides, to be a binding contract. That is, both sides have to do something they’re not already legally required to do.
The typical case example is, say you owe me $1000, and I write up a contract saying that if you pay me $500 I let you off the hook for the rest. We both sign it and you cough up the 500. Being a snake, my next move is to demand the other $500. Our “contract” doesn’t meet the requirements.
But, if the contract had said to pay on some earlier date (than you were originally required), or even asked for $500 and a paperclip, then it would be valid and my snakely intent would have been thwarted.
A sign isn’t agreed to by both parties, and doesn’t involve consideration from both parties, so it’s not in any way a contract, and anyone who purports to be a lawyer should know that. So, she’s either ignorant or purposely bullshitting. Take your pick!
Even though it’s (supposedly) directed at the manager, that’s still not reasonable. They should be allowed to close at any time they want. Do we really want to perpetuate this culture where people can act like spoilt little children just because they can’t have a pizza?
Yes indeed, they should be allowed to close any time they want. But if they choose to exercise that right, they should have taken down the sign, because people are relying on it for their plans.
If a certain store advertises that they are open until 9 PM, and I need a thing that they sell, and under normal circumstances it takes no more than 3 minutes from when I enter the store until I’ve paid for it and leave, then I ought to be able to arrive 10-15 minutes before the posted closing time. Or even 5 minutes before, if they haven’t posted something like “Last checkout at 8:45”.
You may think I’m being a crybaby, but did you consider that it took me ten minutes to get to the store, and another ten minutes to go home emptyhanded? All I’m asking is that they honor the sign that they themselves posted. And I’m quite okay with allowing them to leave early - or even be closed entirely - in the event of some sort of emergency. The only thing I’m complaining about is when they close early for their convenience because they don’t feel like keeping their word (which they posted by the door).
Yes, but the only reason it may do so, is that its opening hours are not interpreted as an offer. I’m not certain how it could be changed into an offer, considering that courts have held that including the word “offer” is not enough. (for instance “this limited time offer” is handled as an invitation to treat, but “the first 15 customers will receive…” is handled as an offer. Go figure.)
Here’s an example. You go to the Great Canadian Superstore to purchase a two litre bottle of diet lemonade soda, which is on display on a shelf in the store with its price clearly set out. This display is an invitation to treat by the store, not an offer. When you hand the bottle of pop to the checkout clerk you are making an offer to purchase it.
Here’s another example. A car at a car dealership has $25,000 written on it’s window. That is not an offer. The salesman takes you inside to get worked over by the sales manager, resulting in you making an offer to purchase the vehicle for $30,000. That is an offer by you to the dealership.
The only conceivable offer in the OP’s scenario would be the woman offering to pee inside the restaurant. The restaurant was not interested in the proposed consideration, so it did not accept her kind and generous offer.
Major malls often have operating hours in the contracts with their tenants. If the restaurant in the OP was party to such a contract, then yes, closing early could be a reach of contract, however, that would be between the mall and the restaurant, not the woman who wanted to pee. She would have no remedy in contract because she was not a party to the contract. Yes, there are exceptions in Canada to privity of contract defeating third party beneficiaries (with the number of exceptions growing), but the norm is privity of contract and as far as I know no exception in Canada has been made for people who are pissed off about restaurant operating hours. Here’s the leading Ontario case on when third party rights may be excepted from the common law doctrine of privity of contract: Brown v. Belleville (City), 2013 ONCA 148.
This distinction helps to explain something that I’ve often heard on (American) radio. Note that I listen to all-news stations far more often than most people, and they seem to cater to white-collar types. This means that they have few-to-none beer commercials, but many for stocks, bonds, and other securities. Those commercials often include a disclaimer to the effect that
The double language intrigued me for a while, but I finally figured it out:[ol][li]This ad is NOT to be interpreted as us trying to sell these securities to you, because you need to be fully informed about the securities before you buy them, and that’s too much information to include in the commercial.[/li][li]But more than that: It’s not just that we’re not trying to get you to commit yourself just yet to buying our securities. We’re not even making an invitation to treat, i.e., we don’t even want you to offer to purchase these securities.[/li][li]So then what the heck is the purpose of the ad? We want you to read the prospectus. And then, if you’re interested, we’ll talk about actually selling you these securities.[/li][/ol]
Exactly! The offer and acceptance happen at the register. In such situations, however, the store would have to inform you of any price changes before you buy it.
Scenario 1:
Box of cookies is marked for $2 at the shelf
You take the box of cookies and give it to the girl at the register
The girl rings it up. Congrats, you just made an offer to buy the cookies for $2 and it was accepted.
It turns out that it should have cost $3, and charged you $3. Tough luck for the store. They accepted your offer to buy at the listed price.
Scenario 2:
Box of cookies is marked for $2 at the shelf
You take the box of cookies and give it to the girl at the register
The girl looks it up and tells you that it costs $3.
You get hyper and say that’s illegal because the offer was $2. Wrong. Tough luck for you this time. You can try to counter-offer, but the store can change the price at any time as long as they tell you about it before you buy it!
Is this true? In Canada, they have a pricing code ethics thing, I don’t know exactly what it is called, but if they have a sign up saying an item is 9.99, ring it through and charge you anything but 9.99, you are then entitled to get said item free, or $10 off said item if it costs more then $10. This is posted at every store, at the cash register. I have personally had this happen to me and I received my item for free.
I am under the impression that if signage is in place with a price and the same product they must honour said advertised price
There’s a difference between this case and the one mentioned above, where the clerk looks up the price and points out the difference before ringing up.
If they just ring up a higher price (usually from scanning), that’s a very different thing. I remember hearing about laws against that in Michigan, years ago.
That may be. Every time I’ve had this happen to me (and it was noticed by the clerk) they simply used the lower of the prices. That may be required by law, or it might just be good customer relations.