Wikiversity Law Reports/Waltons Stores v Maher

High Court of Australia

TL;DR: Promissory estoppel provides a cause of action, not just a defence, i.e. it is a sword as well as a shield. Promissory estoppel can arise in the absence of pre-existing contractual rights.

Facts

 * M, the owner of land with a building on it, was negotiating with W, a retailer, for W to lease the land. If the lease was to go ahead, M would need to demolish the existing building and build a new building suited to W's needs. M and W were negotiating the terms of the proposed lease.
 * W led M to believe that the current draft lease was acceptable to it.
 * Unknown to M, W had decided not to execute the lease yet so as to keep its options open.
 * M began to demolish the existing building and began to build the new building.
 * W told M that it no longer wished to enter into the lease.

Held

 * Having led M into the erroneous assumption that W intended to execute the lease, W was estopped from denying it was bound by its implied promise to execute the lease.

Other publishers' references

 * [1988 HCA 7]
 * (1988) 164 CLR 387