The plaintiff owned horses subject to a bill of sale. The grantor of the bill sold the horses privately in the defendant’s auction yard and following the sale, on the grantor’s instructions, the auctioneer delivered the horses to the buyer.
Held: There had been no conversion. Bramwell LJ: [the auctioneer:] ‘has not claimed to transfer the title and he has not purported to sell; all the dominion he exercised over the chattels was to redeliver them to the person to whom the man from whom he had received them had told him to redeliver them.’ Brett and Cotton LJJ agreed that on the evidence there had been no sale by the auctioneer. This case has been criticised, mainly for the conclusion that there had been no sale by the auctioneer.
Judges:
Bramwell LJ, Brett and Cotton LJJ
Citations:
(1881) 44 LTNS 767
Cited by:
Cited – Marcq v Christe Manson and Woods (t/a Christies) QBD 29-Oct-2002
The claimant sought damages for conversion from the respondent auctioneers as bailees. The painting had been registered as stolen. It failed to achieve its reserve and had been returned.
Held: It was for a bailee to prove that he had acted in . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Agency
Updated: 12 May 2022; Ref: scu.183501
