The plaintiff had purchased quantities of turkey feed from the defendant. It contained a poisonous element, spores of a fungus aspergillus flavus, which killed its flock. The House was asked as to the effect of section 14 of the 1893 Act on the contract.
Lord Pearce observed that the court’s task is to decide what each party to an alleged contract ‘would reasonably conclude from the utterances, writings or conduct of the other’, elaborating: ‘The question, therefore, is not what [the respondent] SAPPA themselves thought or knew about the matter but what they should be taken as representing to Grimsdale about it or leading Grimsdale to believe’
Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest observed: ‘There is no magic in the word ‘particular.’ A communicated purpose, if stated with reasonably sufficient precision, will be a particular purpose. It will be the given purpose. Sometimes the purpose of a purchase will be so obvious that only one purpose could reasonably be in mutual contemplation. An only purpose or an ordinary purpose may therefore be a particular purpose … Sometimes a particular purpose will be made known expressly: sometimes it will be made known by implication.’
Lord Reid, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, Lord Guest, Lord Pearce, Lord Wilberforce
[1968] UKHL 3, [1969] 2 AC 31
Bailii
Sale of Goods Act 1893 14
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Hardwick Game Farm v Suffolk Agricultural Poultry Producers Association CA 1966
Feedstuff was sold by some merchants to a farmer. It was found to be defective. The farmer sued the merchants. The merchants brought in as third party the persons from whom they had purchased the feeding-stuff; they in their turn brought in their . .
Cited by:
Cited – R and B Customs Brokers Co Ltd v United Dominions Trust Ltd CA 1988
There was an issue whether or not the purchase by the plaintiff of a second-hand car was made ‘in the course of a business’ so as to preclude the plaintiff from relying upon the provisions of the 1977 Act.
Held: Speaking of Lord Keith’s . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 30 July 2021; Ref: scu.248572