Walter v Haynes: 6 Sep 1824

An action of assumpsit was brought upon a bill of exchange. A notice of dishonour had been posted in a letter addressed to ‘Mr Haynes, Bristol’. This was held not to be sufficient proof of notice.
Lord Abbott CJ implied that what was required was that the letter did in fact come into the hands of the person for whom it was intended. Normally, the post was sufficiently reliable for posting a letter to be tantamount to delivery into that person’s hands, but the address on this communication was not sufficiently precise for that to be presumed: ‘It is, therefore, always necessary, in the latter case [of a letter addressed generally to AB at a large town], to give some further evidence to shew that the letter did in fact come to the hands of the person for whom it was intended.’
Lord Abbott CJ
[1824] EngR 827, (1824) Ry and Mood 149, (1824) 171 ER 975 (A)
Commonlii
England and Wales
Cited by:
CitedNewcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust v Haywood SC 25-Apr-2018
Notice of dismissal begins when received by worker
The court was asked: ‘If an employee is dismissed on written notice posted to his home address, when does the notice period begin to run? Is it when the letter would have been delivered in the ordinary course of post? Or when it was in fact . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 19 July 2021; Ref: scu.327818