44 



HORSEDEALERS, REPOSITORIES AND AUCTIONS. 



Printed Par- 

 ticiilars of 

 a Sale. 



An iucoiTCct 

 Catalo"-uc. 



A limited 

 Avarranty. 



It is a useful and proper general rule that an Auc- 

 tioneer by parol explanation at the time of sale shall not 

 be suffered to vary from the terms of the Printed Parti- 

 culars. This rule is attended with no hardship, because 

 it would be easy to obviate any difficulty in case the 

 article sold bo different from the description ; Gunnis v. 

 Ecliart {I), Pojccll v. Udmunds (A-), and many other cases 

 collected in Mr. Phillip's book on Evidence, show the 

 2:)rinciple to be, that a written instrument signed with the 

 purchaser's name is the instrument at which we are to look 

 to see what is the contract between the parties (/). 



But when the contract is not in waiting, a mistake in 

 the Catalogue may be explained by the Auctioneer. 

 Thus, in the printed Catalogue of articles intended to be 

 sold by auction, a dressing-case was described to have 

 silver fittings, but previously to the sale of it the Auc- 

 tioneer stated publicly from his box, and in the hearing 

 of tlie defendant, that the Catalogue was incorrect in 

 stating the fittings of the dressing-case to be of silver, and 

 that it would be sold as having plated fittings ; but no 

 alteration was made in the Catalogue. The defendant 

 afterwards bid for the dressing-case, and became the pur- 

 chaser. In an action brought by the Auctioneer to re- 

 cover the price of the dressing-case, which was less than 

 10/., it Avas held that parol evidence of the statement of 

 the Auctioneer at the time of the sale was admissible, the 

 contract not being in writing. And Mr. Baron Alderson 

 said, " The sole question is, what were the terms upon 

 which this article was sold. Are those terms in writing ? 

 If they are, they cannot be varied by parol testimony ; 

 but if they exist only in parol, they of course may be 

 varied by parol ; and as it appears that the article was 

 not sold under an agreement in writing, it was for the 

 Jury to say whether the contract existed in the printed 

 particulars alone, or partly in them and partly in parol, 

 namely, that the Auctioneer stated that there was an 

 inaccuracy in the particulars, which declaration was heard 

 by the defendant, who after hearing it bid for the article. 

 This the Jury have found" {m). 



By the conditions of sale at Repositories and public 

 auctions a specified short time is usually allowed, within 



(i) Guiinis V. Echart, 1 H. B. {I) SJtcUon v. liviiis, 2 C. & J. 



289. 41(3. 



ik) FoutUy. Edmunds, 12 East, 6. (m) Eden v. Ela/cc, 13 M. & W. 



G14. 



