128 



warranty; sale and warranty by agent, etc. 



Warranty by 

 a Servant aa 

 general 

 Asrent. 



to him (a). Therefore the Servant of a private owner 

 entrusted to sell a Horse on one particular occasion, not 

 at a fair or public mart, is not by law authorized to bind 

 his master by a Warranty ; and the buyer who takes such 

 a Warranty, takes it at the risk of being able to prove 

 that the Servant had in fact his master's authority to give 

 it. But the existence of this authority may be inferred ; 

 c. g., it was held in an action for the breach of a Warranty 

 on the sale of a Horse by the Servant of a private owner, 

 that a letter from the plaintiff's attorney to the defendant 

 referring to the alleged Warranty and averring a breach 

 of it, and an answer from the defendant merely denying 

 the breach of it, afforded evidence whence the Jury were 

 justified in finding that the Servant had authority in fact 

 to warrant (b). 



It is still an undecided question whether a special 

 Agent entrusted with the sale of a Horse in a fair or other 

 public mart, where stranger meets stranger, and the usual 

 course of business is for the person in possession of the 

 Horse, and appearing to be the owner, to have all the 

 powers of an owner in respect of the sale, is or is not 

 authorized to bind his master by a Warranty (c). 



But wherever a general authority is given by a Prin- 

 cipal to an Agent, this implies and includes a right to do 

 all subordinate acts incident to and necessary for the ex- 

 ecution of that authority ; then, if notice is not given to 

 the person with whom the Agent deals that the Principal 

 has limited his authority, the Principal is bound (d). In 

 accordance then with this principle of law a Servant em- 

 ployed by a Horsedealer as his general Agent to carry on 

 his business, has an implied authority to warrant the 

 Horses sold by him for his Principal as sound without any 

 special authority for that purpose. And where a War- 

 ranty has been so given. Lord Ellenborough said, " If 

 the Servant was authorized to sell the Horse and to re- 

 ceive the stipulated price, I think he was incidentally 

 authorized to give a Warranty of Soundness. It is now 

 most usual on the sale of Horses to require a Warranty ; 

 and the Agent who is employed to sell, when he warrants 

 the Horse may fairly be presumed to be acting within the 



(«) Chit. Contr. 11th Ed. 198. 



(b) Miller v. Laivton, 15 C. B., 

 N. S. 834. 



(c) Brady v. Todd, 9 C. B., N. S. 



604. See also Miller v. Lawton, 15 

 C. B., N. S. 834. 



{d) Per M. of K., CoUen v. 

 Gardner, 21 Beav. 543. 



