Accordingly, the issues are fully reviewable and we afford no deference to the conclusions reached by the trial court. There must be mutual assent or a meeting of the minds on all essential elements or terms in order to form a binding contract. It is undisputed that there was no formal contract extension in place between McKennan and MXC after the contract expired in 1989. However, McKennan contends that based on this Court's holding in Jurrens v. This contention misconstrues Jurrens .
Mutual assent refers to a meeting of the minds on a specific subject.
Its existence is determined by considering the parties' words and actions. See 17A AmJur2d Contracts 29. McKennan's position in regard to its relationship with MXC reflects nothing more than the fact that it made a unilateral decision to deal with MXC exclusively. See Read v. A unilateral intent is not enough to make a contract binding.