Opinion ID: 2038458
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Sufficiency of the Evidence to Establish Implied-in-Fact Contract.

Text: The district court's findings amounted to a determination that an implied-in-fact contract had been established under the principles set forth in Restatement (Second) of Contracts section 69 (1981). That commentary provides: Ordinarily an offeror does not have power to cause the silence of the offeree to operate as acceptance.... The exceptional cases where silence is acceptance fall into two main classes: those where the offeree silently takes offered benefits, and those where one party relies on the other party's manifestation of intention that silence may operate as acceptance. Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 69 cmt. a (1981) (citation omitted) [hereinafter Restatement]. The bold-letter text of this section provides: (1) Where an offeree fails to reply to an offer, his silence and inaction operate as an acceptance in the following cases only: (a) Where an offeree takes the benefit of offered services with reasonable opportunity to reject them and reason to know that they were offered with the expectation of compensation. Restatement § 69. This Restatement provision in its tentative draft form was given approval by this court in Prestype, Inc. v. Carr, 248 N.W.2d 111, 120-21 (Iowa 1976). We agree with the district court that, even if Nichols, at the time he first learned of the city's requirement of extra excavation, expressed the opinion that it should not be done, if the work was subsequently undertaken and performed for three days with his knowledge and in his presence, he was bound to call off the digging if he did not intend to pay for it. The evidence is also sufficient to support the district court's finding that (1) the excavation, filling, and tamping required by the city's demands were not a part of Price's contract and should be paid for by Nichols; and (2) Roger's' charges were fair and reasonable. The district court's resolution of the controversy is further aided by the following commentary in the Restatement: Problems of offer and acceptance are important primarily in cases where advance commitment serves to shift a risk from one party to the other, as in sales of goods which are subject to rapid price fluctuations, in sales of land, and in insurance contracts. Controversies as to whether and when the commitment is made are less likely to be important even in such cases once performance is well under way. Offer and acceptance becomes still less important after there have been repeated occasions for performance by one party where the other knows the nature of the performance and has an opportunity for objection to it. In such cases it is unnecessary to determine the moment of making of the contract, or which party made the offer and which the acceptance. Restatement § 22 cmt. b (citations omitted). In the present case, the district court could justifiably have found that Roger's' undertaking to do the work constituted a fresh offer to undertake the project, which was accepted by Nichol's silence.