42 OX WARRANTY. 



agrees to deliver it sound and free from blemish at the ex- 

 piration of a specified period, the warranty is broken by a 

 fault in the horse when delivered, although such defect was 

 obvious at the time of sale ; and, as some splints cause 

 lameness, and others do not, a splint is not one of those 

 Ijlain defects against which a warranty will not indemnify ; 

 and when a seller warrants a horse sound at the time of 

 sale, and the horse afterwards becomes lame from the ef- 

 fects of a splint, visible when the horse was bought, it is 

 certain that the warranty is broken. This rule will apply 

 to spavin, or to curb, or to ivinclgall, or, in fact, to any 

 other defect visible at the time of sale ; for all warranties 

 can only undertake for the animal's qualifications at the 

 time of sale; none can extend to any subsequent period 

 unless there be a special clause to deliver the horse free 

 from bleniish, and that delivery be by mutual agreement 

 delayed. (See Tomlin''s Law Dictionary for 1838.) 



With respect to what (oral) declarations of the seller will 

 amount to a warranty, the primary rule for the interpreta- 

 tion of contracts in general is applicable — it depends upon 

 the intention of the parties. A simple afiQrmation of the 

 goodness of an article is a warranty, provided it (a war- 

 ranty) appears to have been intended : whereas the sub- 

 limest epithets that seller ever employed to recommend 

 his goods to a credulous buyer, will be regarded as the 

 idle* phraseology of the market, unless an intention to 

 warrant actually appear. 



Let us now consider how the rights of the parties are 

 affected by the horse being unsound at the time of warran- 

 ty. The contract being thus broken on the part of the 

 seller, it is at the buyer's option either to treat it as a 



* As generally made use of in America, when speaking of their articles— 

 " the best in the world "— " the finest animal iu America." 



