A big earth-moving machine got stuck in the mud. It sank so far as to be out of sight. It cost much money to get it out. Who was to pay the cost?
Held: Lord Denning MR said: ‘I would not put it so much on the course of dealing, but rather on the common understanding which is to be derived from the conduct of the parties, namely, that the hiring is to be on the terms of the plaintiff’s usual conditions.’
and ‘in view of the relationship between the parties, when the defendants requested this crane urgently and it was supplied at once-before the usual form was received-the plaintiffs were entitled to conclude that the defendants were accepting it on the terms of the plaintiffs’ own printed conditions-which would follow in a day or two. It is just as if the plaintiffs had said: ‘We will supply it on our usual conditions’ and the defendants had said ‘Of course, that is quite understood
Judges:
Lord Denning MR
Citations:
[1973] EWCA Civ 6, [1975] QB 303, [1974] 1 All ER 1059
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – McCutcheon v David MacBrayne Ltd HL 21-Jan-1964
The appellant had asked his brother-in-law to have a car shipped from Islay to the mainland. The appellant had personally consigned goods on four previous occasions. On three of them he was acting on behalf of his employer; on the other occasion he . .
Cited by:
Cited – Scheps v Fine Art Logistic Ltd QBD 16-Mar-2007
The claimant bought fine art sculptures by Anish Kapoor at auction. They were stored by the defendant who when called upon to deliver them, said they had possibly been thrown away as rubbish. The defendant sought to limit its liability to the sum . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract
Updated: 23 March 2022; Ref: scu.262741