40 



HOKSEDEALERS, REPOSITORIES AND AUCTIONS. 



Liable to an 

 action for 

 ne^lio-ence. 



Or fur con- 

 version. 



An action lies against an Auctioneer employed to con- 

 duct a sale for negligence in his management of it. As 

 ■where the seller had to make the purchaser compensation, 

 in consequence of the property having been improperly 

 described by the Auctioneer who had been employed to 

 prepare particulars, and sell the property (/). 



And where an Auctioneer, by an unauthorized sale, 

 deprives another of his property permanently or for an 

 indefinite time, he is liable to an action for conversion (w) . 

 The case of Cochrane v. Upmill {n) is an instance of wrongful 

 conversion by an Auctioneer. In that case the plaintiff 

 by agreement let some cabs on hire to one Peggs, who took 

 them to the defendant, who was an Auctioneer, and ob- 

 tained an advance on them. The defendant by Peggs' 

 instructions, and without any notice of the plaintiff's pro- 

 perty in the goods, subsequently sold them by auction, and 

 having recouped himself for his advance, commission, and 

 expenses, handed over the balance to Peggs ; and it was 

 held by the Court of Appeal (affirming the judgment of 

 Lord Coleridge, C. J.), that the plaintiff* was entitled to re- 

 cover damages from the defendant for conversion of the 

 goods ; and Bramwell, L. J., in the course of his judgment 

 said, " It is, no doubt, a very hard case for the defendant 

 who has acted innocently throughout in the matter ; but 

 setting aside the hardship of the case, the law applicable to 

 it is quite clear. Here is Peggs, a man who is not the true 

 owner of these goods, but appearing to act as such, but 

 who has no power whatever to sell, takes them to the de- 

 fendant and gets a loan from him on them. The defen- 

 dant keeps them and finally sells them in such a way as to 

 pass the property in them to the buyers, and if that is not 

 a conversion, then I think there can be no such thing. 

 Supposing a man were to come into an auction yard hold- 

 ing a Horse by the bridle and to say, ' I want to sell my 

 Horse : if you wall find a purchaser I will pay commission.' 

 And the Auctioneer says, ' Here is a man who wants to sell 

 a Horse ; will anyone buy him ?' If he then and there finds 

 him a purchaser and the seller himself hand over the Horse, 

 there could be no act, on the part of the Auctioneer, which 

 could render him liable to an action for conversion. But, 



(0 rarhrv. Farchrothcr, 2'Weekly 

 Eep., C. B. 370; and see Torrance 

 V. Bolton, L. R., 8 Ch. 118; 42 

 L. J., Ch. 177. 



{m) mart v. Botf, L. R., 9 Ex. 

 86, 89 ; 43 L. J., Ex. 81 ; 30 L. T., 

 N. S. 25 ; 22 W. R. 414. 



{n) 40 L. T., N. S. 744; 27 

 W. R. 770. 



