340 IMPOUNDING ; INJURIES ON HIGHWAYS, ETC. 



88. Diseased Animals; Sale — Where animals are sold which 

 are to the knowledge of the seller afflicted with a contagious 

 disease of which the purchaser is kept in ignorance, the latter 

 may rescind the contract.^^* And an agent will render his 

 principals civilly liable though they are ignorant of his fraud 

 in selling the diseased animal. i''" If the disease is one not 

 easily detected by those having no experience of it and the 

 seller does not disclose it, he is guilty of fraudulent conceal- 

 ment of a latent defect for which he must answer : the rule of 

 caveat emptor does not apply.^''^ 



Where a statute prohibited persons from sending animals 

 affected with a contagious disease to market and inflicted pen- 

 alties on one so doing, the action of knowingly sending them 

 was held to be a public offense but not to amount by implica- 

 tion to a representation that they were sound so as to give 

 a purchaser a right to a remedy by action. ^®^ In this case 

 the seller made a statement in writing that he Avould not war- 

 rant the goods, that they were open to inspection and that 

 the purchaser must take them with their faults ; but in a later 

 case it was said by Lord Blackburn that where the owner of 

 an animal takes it to a public market for sale, this furnishes 

 evidence of a representation on his part that it is not, so far 

 as he knows, suffering from any infectious disease. ^*^ To 

 bring a horse infected with glanders into a public place to the 

 danger of infecting the people is an indictable misdemeanor 

 at common law, although the defendant may not have been 

 aware that the disease is so communicable.^^* But the fraudu- 

 lent sale of a horse by one knowing it has a contagious disease 

 like glanders to one ignorant thereof, will not render the seller 



"° Wintz V. Morrison, 17 Tex. 372; Budd v. McLaughlin, 10 Ma. 75. 



As to the sale of diseased animals for food, see § 29, supra. 



"" Jeffrey v. Bigelow, 13 Wend. (N. Y.) 518. 



'" Grigsby v. Stapleton, 94 Mo. 423. 



'"" Ward V. Hobbs, 4 App. Cas. 13. 



"^ Bodger v. Nicholls, 28 L. T. N. S. 441. 



=" Reg. V. Henson, Dears. C. C. 24. 



