54 



HORSEDEALERS, REPOSITORIES AKD AUCTIONS. 



Agent not 

 declaring' 

 himself to be 

 so. 



Auctioneer's 

 commission. 



discredit to the law of England if the innocent agent of 

 the plaintiff's fraud were bound to pay the money over to 

 him. For if he did so after notice he would he liable to 

 an action at the suit of the purchaser (r/). 



It is still an undecided question, the Court of Exche- 

 quer being equally divided on the point, whether an 

 agent, who does nothing by word or act at an auction to 

 indicate that he is contracting for himself, and who allows 

 the Auctioneer to put down his name as the purchaser, is 

 to be fixed as such, there being thus much of evidence 

 after the sale was over, that he was buying merely as an 

 agent, that the goods were fetched away afterwards by 

 the principal's carts, and made use of by him {e). 



Where an Auctioneer, entrusted with a sale, is the 

 causa causans of the sale, he is entitled to his commission, 

 even though before the actual sale the vendor withdrew 

 the property from sale by him (/). Thus, by the terms 

 of an agreement between the parties, an Auctioneer was 

 to be entitled to a commission, if the estate should be sold 

 by him. The estate was not actually sold by him, but 

 the vendor after the Auctioneer had advertised the sale, 

 and had put up the property for sale by auction, wrote 

 to the plaintiff, and withdrew the property from sale for 

 the present. In the meantime, and before the sale was 

 withdrawn, the vendor and the afterv/ards purchaser were 

 in negotiation for the purchase of the property. In an 

 action by the Auctioneer against the vendor for his com- 

 mission, it was held by the Court of Common Pleas, that 

 under these circumstances the Auctioneer must be held to 

 be the causa causans of the sale, and therefore entitled to 

 his commission {g). 



(d) Stevens v. Zee, Q. B., Nov. 7, 

 1853. 



(e) Williamson V. Barton, Zl L. J., 

 Ex. 170. 



(/) Clark V. Smythies, 2 F. & F. 

 83 ; and see Miller v. Beale, 27 W. 

 R. 403, M. R. 



(.9) Green v. Bartlett, 8 L. T., N. 

 S. 503. 



