Acceptance

[Lat. acceptatio, from acceptare, to accept.] A receiving with approbation, or satisfaction; or, in the language of the old books, "a taking in good part." Termes de la ley.

Cowell.

Approval of

assent to, or acquiescence in a thing received; an agreement to keep a thing received. Acceptance is receipt, and something more. There cannot be acceptance without receipt, but there is often receipt without acceptance.

Smith on Contracts, 71, note (a).

The purchaser of goods may, on receiving them from the seller, accept them, or return them as not answering the contract. If he neglect to return them within a reasonable time, or to give notice to the seller that he does not intend to take them, he is considered as having accepted them, and will be held to the purchase. So, the drawee of a bill of exchange may, on receiving it, either accept it, or return it without acceptance; and the same distinction has been made between the receipt and the acceptance of a deed. Ersk. Inst. b.

3. tit. 2. § 45.

ACCEPTANCE of a Bill of Exchange. [L. Lat. acceptatio.] In mercantile law. The act by which the person on whom a bill of exchange is drawn, (called the drawee,) assents to the request of the drawer to pay it, or, in other words, engages, or makes himself liable to pay it, when due.

4 East, 51, 72. 2 Bl. Com. 469.

It may be by parol, or in writing, and either general or special, absolute or conditional; and it may be impliedly, as well as expressly given.

3 Kent's Com. 83, 85. Story on Bills, §§ 242 — 244.

But the usual and regular mode of acceptance is by the drawee's writing across the face of the bill the word "accepted," and subscribing his name; after which he is termed the acceptor.

Id. § 243.

See Acceptor. Acceptance au besoin. Fr. In French law. Acceptance in case of need; an acceptance by one on whom a bill is drawn au besoin, that is, in case of refusal or failure of the drawee to accept.

Story on Bills, §§ 66, 254, 255.

Acceptance supra protest

In mercantile law.

Acceptance over protest

An acceptance of a bill by a third person, after protest for non-acceptance by the drawee; such acceptance being for the honor of the drawer, or of some particular endorser.

3 Kent's Com. 87. Story on Bills, § 121.

Called in French law, acceptance par intervention.

Id. § 256.