Raffles v Wichelhaus [1864] 2 H&C 906

There was confusion since a contract stipulated that goods should be carried in the ship Peerless and there were two ships by that name, one of which would arrive later.

Defendant asserted that he had intended the ship that arrived earlier and therefore had not paid, and Plaintiff sued him for breach of contract.

CA, without giving its reasons, denied Plaintiff’s claim and upheld Defendant’s right not to pay.

• CW: Traditional explanation is that there was no consensus ad idem to the thing. This is wrong because contract law doesn’t require a subjective meeting of the minds.

• On an objective understanding of consensus ad idem, it seems that however a reasonable person might try to interpret it, the statement suffered latent ambiguity: “objectivity simply ran out”.