It seems again necessary to call the attention of our members to the custom of printing a clause on the top of letter-heads used for quotation to the effect that agreements or contracts are contingent upon strikes, accident, other causes, etc. It frequently happens that this clause is so printed on the letter-head or quotation form as not to make it a part of the contract, and the following attorney’s opinion is pertinent:

When a man has a proposal to make to another in writing he begins, usually and naturally, with the name of the place from which he writes and the date. Then he makes his proposal and closes by signing his name. The paper upon which he writes may have printed at the top or somewhere in the margin the name and address of the firm; the telephone number and the number of the firm’s post office box; the cable address; a list of five or six cable codes used by the concern; names of the various articles in which it deals; facsimiles of some of its trade-marks; pictures of certain gold medals that have been awarded to its goods at fairs of one sort or another. Frequently there is much other matter. There may also be something to the effect that agreements are contingent upon strikes. Of course, the person to whom the proposition is addressed is not concerned with any of these things. What he has to read and consider is the matter found between the address and the signature, and nothing more. That is the reasonable interpretation of the matter, and, is, very naturally, the view that the courts have taken of it. In 153 Ill., 102, to quote only one case, the Supreme Court of Illinois decided that “the words ‘all sales subject to strikes and accidents,’ printed as part of the letter-head of a reply, do not form any part of the contract.” No court could very well reach any other conclusion, so far as we can ascertain, and no court has done so.

In the same manner a postscript on a letter or quotation blank is not an actual part of the contract unless it is signed.

Other members have also attempted to enforce terms printed on their invoices where such terms were not referred to in the original order or contract of sale. The following opinion will be helpful in such matters:

The question of the invoice may be settled with little difficulty. Nothing upon the invoice is binding upon the buyer, whether it is written or printed and whether it stands in the body of the document or in the margin. A contract is made by two persons, and it is binding only in so far as both have agreed to be bound by it. An invoice is made, after all the terms of the contract have been irrevocably fixed, and it is made by only one person. The seller would have things very much his own way if he could go off alone, after a contract had been made, and alter or amend or limit or explain it by his own act. He has no such power, of course, and he cannot put anything upon his invoice in writing or in print, that will bind the buyer.

Opinion No. 82.