Common MBE Traps: Firm Offers

You're given a fact pattern that looks like the classic firm offer under the UCC. A merchant makes an offer and, though no consideration is provided to the merchant, the merchant promises to keep the offer open. That's a valid firm offer (essentially an option contract, without the need for consideration, if certain requirements are met). Four months pass. As the test taker, you're feeling pretty good. You know the firm offer rule, and you also know that it's limited. If more than 3 months have passed, it expires. But there's a trap. Just because the firm offer has expired, doesn't mean that the offerree can no longer accept that offer if the offer has not been revoked. The expiration of the firm offer merely means that the offer is revocable, not that it was revoked. So when the offeror claims the offer has been revoked (because he's changed his mind as offeror's on the MBE tend to do) the offeror cannot use the expiration of the firm offer as the basis for revocation. If that offer was not revoked, it was open for the offerree to accept even after the expiration of the firm offer.