Simpkins v Pays [1955] 1 WLR 975 is a precedent case on intention to create legal relations in the English law of contract.
Decided at Chester assizes in 1955, this case involved an informal syndicate agreement between a grandmother, grand-daughter and a lodger.
The coupon sent in for June 1954 was successful; but the grandmother refused to pay a third of the £750 prize money to the lodger, claiming that the arrangement to share any winnings was reached in a family association and was not intended to give rise to legal consequences, and that accordingly, there was no contract.
The judge, applying the objective test, said that the informal agreement between the parties was binding and that the facts showed a "mutuality" between the parties, adding:[1] If my conclusion that there was an arrangement to share any prize money is not correct, the alternative position to that of these three persons competing together as a "syndicate", as counsel for the plaintiff put it, would mean that the plaintiff, despite her propensity for having a gamble, suddenly abandoned all her interest in the competition in the Sunday Empire News.
I think that that is most improbable ... .Sellers J added that, semble, the grand-daughter also would be entitled to as one-third share (even though she was not a party to the case, nor had she claimed against her grandmother).