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1.
The Divisional Court's decision in Fisher v Bell
As students of the Law of Contract learn to their bemusement, in Fisher v Bell,1although caught by a member of the constabulary in the most compromising circumstances, the owner of Bell's Music Shop, situate in the handsome Victorian shopping Arcade in the bustling Broadmead area of Bristol, was unsuccessfully prosecuted for offering for sale a flick knife contrary to s.1(1) of the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959. The statute penalised "any person who manufactures, sells or hires or offers for sale or hire, or lends or gives to any other person" a flick knife. Mr Bell had done all in his power to make a sale. The switchblade had been displayed in his shop window with a label that read, "Ejector knife--4s". The police officer, who spotted the display and then took the knife away to show to his superintendent, was told by the shopkeeper that he had had other policemen in the shop inquiring about the knives. When the officer returned to tell Mr Bell that he would be prosecuted, the latter simply retorted "Fair enough."
Subsequent events were to vindicate Mr Bell's insouciance. Lord Parker C.J., presiding over a strong court consisting of Ashworth and Elwes JJ., upheld the Bristol justices' decision that no offence had been committed. More specifically, the Divisional Court ruled that in the absence of a statutory definition of the expression "offer for sale", the phrase had to be attributed its customary meaning in the Law of Contract. There, since a display of goods in a shop window, even accompanied by a price ticket, had for long been held not to constitute a contractual offer but only an invitation to treat,2Mr Bell had committed no offence when he placed a flick knife in the window of his music shop in the earnest hope that someone would happen along and buy it.
Lord Parker C.J. confessed:
Most lay people and, indeed, I myself when I first read the papers, would be inclined to the view that to say that if a knife was displayed in a window like that with a price attached to it was not...