Adsum

March 2002

Payment of Correct Price

From the book Father Connell Answers Moral Questions
by Very Rev. Francis J. Connell, C.SS.R., S.T.D., L.L.D., L.J.D.

Question: A librarian sometimes receives bills which contain errors. When he is overcharged, he protests, and the error is promptly corrected. However, it sometimes happens that the error is the other way — that the price charged for a book is certainly less than the seller intended. Is the librarian bound in such a case to call attention of the dealer to this mistake? If so, on what principle?

Answer: When a buyer is sure that the bill sent by the dealer mistakenly calls for a lower price than that intended by the seller, he is bound to make known the fact so that the bill may be corrected and the full price charged. This is called for by the principle that in ordering an article from a dealer a person implicitly agrees to pay the price which the dealer has set; consequently he is bound to pay this price, once he has accepted the article, even though the bill erroneously contains a lower price. Hence, the librarian spoken of by the questioner is bound in justice to transmit to the dealer the price which he certainly meant to charge for the book. We emphasize the fact that it must be certain that this is the price intended by the seller before the buyer is bound to question the amount demanded for the bill; for if there is solid probability that the dealer in this instance knowingly reduced the price, the buyer can satisfy his obligation by paying the reduced amount without asking any questions.

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