(Court of Session Inner House First Division) There was contract between a tramway company and an advertising firm, under which the firm paid a rental for the right to display advertising on the tramcars. It was up to the firm to provide the boards around the upper deck of the tramcars, on which the advertisements were displayed. The tramway company subsequently constructed new tramcars with ‘decency boards’ already supplied, saving the advertising firm the expense of fitting its own. The tramway company claimed against the advertising firm for the cost of fitting the decency boards.
Held: The claim was rejected, on the ground that the tramway company had not incurred any loss through the provision of the benefit.
Lord President Dunedin observed that ‘there are certain marks or notes of the situation in which recompense is due, and I think that one mark or note is that the person who claims recompense must have lost something’.
The company had been acting for its own purposes. Referring to earlier authorities, the Lord President remarked that in the case at hand ‘you have the same element that went to the decision of some of these eases, that the thing done was as much for the benefit of the man who did it as for that of the other person’. He illuminated by example: ‘One man heats his house, and his neighbour gets a great deal of benefit. It is absurd to suppose that the person who has heated his house can go to his neighbour and say – ‘Give me so much for my coal bill, because you have been warmed by what I have done, and I did not intend to give you a present of it.”
Judges:
Lord Johnston, Ordinary,Lord President
Citations:
[1908] ScotCS CSIH – 8, [1908] SLR 102
Links:
Jurisdiction:
Scotland
Cited by:
Cited – Taylor v Van Dutch Marine Holding Ltd and Others ChD 22-Jul-2019
. .
Cited – Lowick Rose Llp v Swynson Ltd and Another SC 11-Apr-2017
Losses arose from the misvaluation of a company before its purchase. The respondent had funded the purchase, relying upon a valuation by the predecessor of the appellant firm of accountants. Further advances had been made when the true situation was . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract
Updated: 27 November 2022; Ref: scu.610801