Bluck v Gompertz; 7 Jun 1852

References: [1852] EngR 689, (1853) 7 Exch 862, (1852) 155 ER 1199
Links: Commonlii
Coram: Pollock, Baron Parke
The defendant had signed an undertaking to procure the acceptance of two bills for £200 and £146 for wine supplied to an MP and agreed to see that they were duly paid. The latter draft should have been for £150. The plaintiff drew bills for £200 and £500 and the defendant saw that they were accepted. The defendant wrote across the guarantee ‘I have received the two drafts, one being for £150, instead of £146, the other being an error in the invoice of £4’). The plaintiff signed this but the defendant did not. The guarantee as endorsed was treated as a valid memorandum of the contract since the endorsement had been made for the purpose of correcting the mistake and, being written by the defendant on the same piece of paper as he had originally signed, his original signature was plainly intended to authenticate the memorandum as amended, and could therefore be considered as doing so, notwithstanding that the words written on the paper by the defendant were written as the words of the plaintiff. Pollock CB said that the court had come to its conclusion not without some difficulty. Baron Parke said he had had great difficulty in bringing his mind to this conclusion.
This case cites:

  • See Also – Bluck -v- Gompertz ([1851] EngR 878, Commonlii, (1851) 7 Exch 67, (1851) 155 ER 859)
    The court has power, independently of statute to compel the plaintiff to produce for the defendant’s inspection a document upon which the action is brought, where the defendant is a party to te document and has no copy of it. . .

This case is cited by:

  • Cited – Golden Ocean Group Ltd -v- Salgaocar Mining Industries Pvt Ltd and Another ComC (Bailii, [2011] EWHC 56 (Comm), [2011] 2 All ER (Comm) 95, [2011] 1 CLC 125, [2011] CILL 3022, [2011] 1 WLR 2575)
    The defendants sought to set aside orders allowing the claimants to serve proceedings alleging repudiation of a charterparty in turn allowing a claim against the defendants under a guarantee. The defendant said the guarantee was unenforceable under . .