Oswald v. Allen

The plaintiff, a doctor from Switzerland, was interested in a collection of Swiss coins owned by the defendant. In April of 1964 he arranged a meeting to see the defendant’s coins. She showed him two of her collections, which she referred to as the Swiss Coin Collection and the Rarity Coin Collection. Each collection had a different key number and was housed in different cigar boxes.

The plaintiff testified that he did not know the coins were in a separate collection. They negotiated a price of $50,000 for the Swiss Coin Collection, and evidently did not realize that the term Swiss Coin Collection was ambiguous.

Plaintiff filed suit for breach of contract. The trial court ruled that a contract did not exist since the minds of the parties had not been met. Plaintiff appealed.

Whether a contract has been formed when a primary term of the agreement is ambiguous and the parties understand it in different ways.

When any of the terms used to express an agreement is ambivalent, and the parties understand it in different ways, there cannot be a contract unless one of them should have been aware of the other’s understanding.