Cengage Advantage Books: Fundamentals of Business Law Today 10th Edition by Roger LeRoy Miller

Exercise 21

Acceptance. Judy Olsen, Kristy Johnston, and their mother, Joyce Johnston, owned seventy-eight acres of real property on Eagle Creek in Meagher County, Montana. When Joyce died, she left her interest in the property to Kristy. Kristy wrote to Judy, offering to buy Judy's interest or to sell her own interest to Judy. She requested that Judy "please respond to Bruce Townsend." In a letter to Kristy-not to Bruce-Judy accepted the offer to buy Kristy's interest in the property. By that time, however, Kristy had made the same offer to sell her interest to their brother, Dave, and he had accepted. Did Judy and Kristy have an enforceable binding contract, entitling Judy to specific performance? Or did Kristy's offer so limit its acceptance to one exclusive mode that Judy's reply was not effective? Discuss. [ Olsen v. Johnston, 368 Mont. 347, 301 P.3d 791 (2013)] (See Agreement.)