570 BADNESS OF SHAPE NOT UNSOUNDNESS. 



Matthews V. Parker. A chest -foundered horse is unsound {Atferlury 

 V. Fairmaner), and so is one suffering from cataract {Higgs v. Thrale), 

 or ojMcity of the crystaUim lens {Briggs v. Baker). 



An affection of the nerves in the lumbar region was held in Wilmot v. 

 Lees to be an unsoundness. The harge nerves so affected take their 

 origin from the spinal marrow as it passes through the loins, and hence 

 there is no proper nervous connection between the hind quarters and 

 the brain. The disease betrays itself very little when the horse is in 

 action, but is especially apparent when he moves in the stall l)y the 

 jerking upwards of the near hind limb, and an inabihty to move side- 

 ways, which cause him to fail and drop several inches on the near side. 

 Three veterinary surgeons "could see nothing the matter" with this 

 horse, and his groom swore that he had acquired the habit of dropping 

 bis hind legs fi-om his occasionally clipping him over the legs with a 

 pitchfork to make him clear the bedding. Under the direction of 

 Coleridge J. there was a verdict for the defendant for the difference 

 between the price given for the horse and the sum he sold for when 

 under dispute. 



It was expressly laid down by Alder son J., in Dickinson v Follett, 

 that " a horse cannot be considered unsound in Imv merely from badness 

 of shajie. As long as he is uninjured he must be considered sound. 

 AVhen the injury is produced by the badness of his action it constitutes 

 an unsoundness." The evidence here was contradictory as to whether 

 the unsoundness existed at the time of the sale, and a veterinary sur- 

 geon who was called for the defendant said that the horse was so ill- 

 formed from turning out one of its fore-legs, that it was incapable of 

 doing work to any extent without cutting so as to produce lameness. 

 The law laid down by the learned judge was expressly in point for the 

 defendant in Broicn v. EUwigfon, where it appeared that the plaintiff 

 had objected to the horse's curby hocks at the time of the sale, but 

 bought him for £60 on receiving a general warranty of soundness. 

 He sprang a curb a fortnight after, in his third day with hounds. 

 Veterinary surgeons gave their testimony for the plaintiff to the effect 

 that curby hocks indicate a peculiar form of the hock, which was con- 

 sidered to render the horse more liable to throw out a curb, but did not 

 of itself occasion lameness, and that the horse had curby hocks at the 

 time of sale. Lord Abinger C.B. told the jury that a defect in the 

 formation of the horse which had not occasioned lameness at the time 

 of sale, though it might render the animal more liable to be lame at 

 some future time, was no breach of the warranty. The Court of Ex- 

 chequer refused a new trial for misdircct'on, which was moved for on 

 the fi-ouud that a malformation, the natural consequence of which was 



