The owner and a connoisseur agree to sell a rare eighteenth-century chest at a price to be determined only by a trusted antiques dealer. The dealer examines the chest and dies before deciding. A reasonable price can be established for the chest by the court. Is there likely an enforceable contract?

• A. Yes, because the dealer would eventually determine the price.
• B. Yes, because a reasonable price can be determined by the court.
• C. No, because the owner and the connoisseur did not intend to be bound unless the dealer set the price of the chest.
• D. Yes, because the court can set the price.

Answer: (C)

The key idea is that a contract must have definite terms or a clear way to fix any missing terms. Here, the price was left to be determined by a specific third party—the trusted antiques dealer. That sets up a condition: the contract to sell the chest only comes into existence when that dealer fixes the price. The moment the dealer dies before making that determination, the essential term remains unresolved and no binding agreement is formed.

A court might normally fill an open price term in a sale of goods by allowing a reasonable price to be used, but that mechanism hinges on the parties’ contemplated method for fixing price or on a permissible gap-filler. Here, the parties expressly tied the price to the dealer’s determination, not to a court’s intervention. With the dealer unavailable, the price cannot be fixed as the contract requires, so there is no enforceable contract.

So the correct result rests on the fact that the parties did not intend to be bound until the dealer set the price, and the dealer’s death forecloses any binding price term.