body: [Prof Richard Taylor](https://www.uclan.ac.uk/staff_profiles/richard-taylor.php), [Damian Taylor](https://www.slaughterandmay.com/who-we-are/partners/damian-taylor/). [*Contract Law Directions* (6 edn, 2019)](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Contract-Law-Directions-Richard-Taylor/dp/0198836597/ref=dp_ob_title_bk). p 41.
  
  
  Kindly see the last sentence, emboldened, at the bottom.
  
  
  
  > 
  > Acceptance by silence
  > ---------------------
  > 
  > 
  > The law often makes a distinction between positive conduct and omissions—in criminal law it is
  > an offence to push a man off a cliff but not normally an offence to omit to call a warning before
  > someone steps off the edge. The same is true in contract law. Whilst conduct may amount to an
  > acceptance, doing nothing, i.e. silence, will rarely count. The reasoning is the same as in other
  > areas of law; a man must not be put under a duty to act without good reason. If silence was
  > readily accepted as a mode of acceptance in contract law then I could go around telling everybody
  > in sight that I would assume they had accepted my offer to buy all their property for 10
  > pence if I did not hear from them within one hour. This would place a duty on everybody I met
  > to reject my offer within one hour if they did not want to be bound—clearly a ridiculous situation.
  > Therefore, the general rule established in *Felthouse v Bindley* (1862) is that silence cannot
  > constitute an acceptance. In that case a nephew and his uncle had negotiated the sale of the
  > nephew’s horse. They misunderstood each other and became confused about the agreed price.
  > In a letter, the uncle suggested that they split the difference and that if he heard no more about
  > it he would consider the sale done for this middle price. The nephew said nothing more to the
  > uncle but clearly accepted the new price because he told his auctioneer to withdraw the horse
  > from auction in which it was to be sold as he had already sold it to his uncle. The auctioneer
  > nevertheless sold the horse in the auction by mistake and the uncle sued him for interfering with
  > his property rights over the horse (known as the tort of conversion). It was held that the uncle
  > had not become the owner of the horse, and therefore had no title to sue, because the contract
  > of sale between the uncle and nephew lacked an acceptance and so never existed. You should
  > note that it was the uncle (the offeror) who claimed there was a contract and it was he who had
  > introduced the idea that acceptance could be by silence—**if instead it had been the nephew, who
  > sought to enforce the contract, a different result might have been appropriate**.
  > 
  > 
  > 
  
  
  
title: In Felthouse v Bindley (1862), why didn't the nephew claim?