48 



HORSEDEALERS, REPOSITORIES AND AUCTIONS. 



Effect of ad- 

 vertisement. 



Warranty of 

 ownership. 



there was any or what remedy on the conditions of sale 

 against the vendor, who violated the condition that the 

 article should be bond fide sold " without reserve," but they 

 were clear that the bidder had no remedy against the 

 Auctioneer, whose authority to accept the offer of the 

 bidder had been determined by the vendor before the 

 hammer had been knocked down. But in the Exchequer 

 Chamber, to which this case was carried, three Judges held 

 that the jiurchaser was entitled to recover damages, for they 

 thought that the highest bond fide bidder at an auction may 

 sue the Auctioneer as upon a contract that the sale shall 

 be " without reserve," and that the contract is broken upon 

 a bid being made by or on behalf of the owner, whether it 

 be during the time when the property is under the hammer, 

 or it be the last bid on which the property is knocked down. 

 They did not doubt that the owner at any time before the 

 contract is legally comj)lete might revoke the Auctioneer's 

 authority. As to the conditions, they held that tlie owner 

 could not be the buyer ; and that the Auctioneer ought 

 not to have taken his bid, but to have refused it, stating 

 as his reason that the sale was " without reserve." 

 Inclining to differ from the Queen's Bench, they rather 

 thought the bid of the owner was not a revocation of the 

 Auctioneer's authority. The other two Judges agreed, but 

 founded their judgment upon the evidence that the 

 Auctioneer had not authority to sell except " without 

 reserve," and thought that there ought to be a count added 

 by way of amendment, stating an undertaking by the 

 Auctioneer that he had authority to sell " without reserve," 

 and a breach of that undertaking. 



But where an Auctioneer advertised in the London 

 papers that a sale by auction would take place on a 

 particular day in a country town, and also circulated cata- 

 logues specifying the articles to be sold ; and a person 

 attended the sale intending to buy certain articles specified 

 in the catalogue, but on the day of sale they were with- 

 drawn by the Auctioneer ; it was held that there was no 

 implied contract by him to indemnify the intended pur- 

 chaser against the expense and inconvenience that he had 

 incurred, as the advertising was a mere declaration of 

 intention to sell {x). 



A statement that a Horse is the property of the vendor, 



{x) Harris v. NlcJicrson, L. E,., 8 Q. 

 28 L. T., N. S. 410 ; 21 W. K. 635. 



B. 286; 42 L. J., Q. B. 171; 



