swarb.co.uk - law index
These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases. Â
Commercial - From: 1849 To: 1899
This page lists 7 cases, and was prepared on 20 May 2019.
ÂIn The Matter Of The Complaint Of Thomas Nicholson The Younger And Isaiah Birt Nicholson v The Great Western Railway Company [1858] EngR 1102; (1858) 5 CB NS 366; (1858) 144 ER 146
9 Nov 1858
Transport, Commercial
[ Commonlii ]
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In The Matter Of The Complaint Of Joseph Baxendale And Others, Carrying On Business Under The Firm Of Pickford and Co, Common Carries v The Great Western Railway Company [1858] EngR 1101; (1858) 5 CB NS 309; (1858) 144 ER 123
9 Nov 1858
Commercial, Contract
[ Commonlii ]
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C P Henderson and Co v The Comptoir D'Escompte de Paris (1873-74) LR 5 PC 253
1873
PC
Commercial, Transport, Contract
The court considered a bill of lading in the usual form, save that the words "or order or assigns" are omitted. The court was prepared to assume that such a bill was not a negotiable instrument. It was argued that, notwithstanding the omission of these words, this bill of lading was a negotiable instrument, and there was some authority at nisi prius for that proposition; but the general view of the mercantile world was that, in order to make bills of lading negotiable, some such words as "or order or assigns" ought to be in them.
1 Citers
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Jones v North (1888) 21 QBD 544
1875
Bacon V-C
Commercial, Contract
Four parties were invited to tender for the supply of stone to a public authority. They agreed that one would buy stone from the others and submit the lowest tender, two parties were to submit a higher tender and the fourth party was to submit no tender. The defendants, in breach of the agreement, submitted a tender, which was accepted, and the party which was to supply under the agreement brought proceedings to restrain performance by the party which had broken ranks. Held: The action succeeded.
Bacon V-C considered the plaintiff's case as "very honest". It was submitted that the plaintiff could not obtain equitable relief since the arrangement was a device to compel the authority, under the fiction of a public competition, to accept tenders not representing the real market price of the commodity, but this submission the vice-chancellor rejected, finding the agreement to be "perfectly lawful", to contain "nothing illegal", and not deserving to be characterised as a conspiracy.
1 Citers
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Attorney-General v Edison Telephone Company of London (1880) 6 QBD 244
1880
Stephen J
Commercial
The 1869 Act gave the Postmaster-General a monopoly of transmitting telegrams. Telegrams were defined as messages transmitted by telegraph. A telegraph was defined to include ‘any apparatus for transmitting messages or other communications by means of electric signals’. When the Act was introduced the only such means of communication functioned by interrupting and re-establishing electric current, thereby causing a series of clicks which conveyed information by morse code. Then Bell and Edison invented the telephone which conveyed the human voice by wire by means of an entirely novel process. It was argued that because this process was unknown when the Act was passed, the Act could not apply to it. The Court rejected this submission. Giving the judgment of the Exchequer Division, Stephen J said: "Of course no one supposes that the legislature intended to refer specifically to telephones many years before they were invented, but it is highly probable that they would, and it seems to us clear that they actually did, use language embracing future discoveries as to the use of electricity for the purpose of conveying intelligence. The great object of the Act of 1863 was to give special powers to telegraph companies to enable them to open streets, lay down wires, take land, suspend wires over highways, connect wires, erect posts on the roofs of houses, and do many other things of the same sort. The Act, in short, was intended to confer powers and to impose duties upon companies established for the purpose of communicating information by the action of electricity upon wires, and absurd consequences would follow if the nature and extent of those powers and duties were made dependent upon the means employed for the purpose of giving the information."
Telegraph Act of 1869
1 Citers
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Slazenger and Sons v Feltham and Co (1889) 6 RPC 531 CA
1889
CA
Lindley LJ
Commercial
As to a party, a court will not "be astute to say that he cannot succeed in doing that which he is straining every nerve to do".
1 Citers
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Manchester Trust v Furness [1895] 2 QB 539
1895
CA
Lindley LJ
Land, Commercial
Lindley LJ said: "In dealing with estates in land title is everything, and it can be leisurely investigated; in commercial transactions possession is everything, and there is no time to investigate title; and if we were to extend the doctrine of constructive notice to commercial transactions we should be doing infinite mischief and paralyzing the trade of the country."
1 Citers
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