Rule Application In our case a judge would likely find that Ryan can enforce the contract for the sale of the quilt due to Ryan’s genuine belief that Stewart’s agreement was legitimate. Stewart’s reasonably expressed intention was to sell the quilt with no indication of his true intention to Ryan. Ryan, being a rational individual, was within reason to assume that the quilt was to be sold to her given the actions of Stewart. It is the duty of the parties to express intent. In Ryan’s situation Stewart’s private agenda was undisclosed to Ryan in a manner that would lead her to believe the contract was valid. Comparatively, in Lucy Zehmer failed to express his true intent, just as Stewart did, leading to a verdict in favor of Lucy. Stewart went along with the signing of the contract, bargained for the price, and did not attempt to revoke the contract after its signing, just as Zehmer, Lucy v. Zehmer, 196 Va. 493 (1954) …show more content…
The first two being that a party’s actions or inactions express intent to perform, and that undisclosed intent is not relevant if it was in no way expressed. In Ryan’s issue Stewart offered the quilt to Ryan, wrote out a contract, bargained for the price of the good, set a date of execution, signed the contract, and failed to amend the contract in any way between the signing date and execution date. All of Stewart’s actions mirror those of Zehmer in Lucy showing a clear similarity in facts, Lucy v. Zehmer, 196 Va. 493