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As you read about acceptance
Recall that the overarching question is whether the parties have reached an agreement, and, as in Lucy v. Zehmer, the court resolves the question with that broader approach. Sometimes, however, one of the parties will make a narrower argument: as you saw in the previous section, the issue might be whether there was an offer. If there was no offer, there can be no agreement.
In this section, we will see that sometimes a party can argue that even if there was an offer, that offer was not accepted.
So far, we have seen that the courts will apply the objective approach to resolving all of these questions. The Restatement describes acceptance as follows: "Acceptance of an offer is a manifestation of assent to the terms thereof made by the offeree in a manner invited or required by the offer." (Restatement § 50). Is this consistent with the objective approach?
As you read the following cases, think about whether the Restatement definition is a useful distillation of the doctrine.
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