Page:Halsbury Laws of England v1 1907.pdf/609

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The Contract of Agistment.

Part IV.

387

man's cattle, horses, or other animals, to graze on his land for part iv. reward (usually at a certain rate per week) on the implied term Contract of Agistment, If the latter that he will redeliver them to the owner on demand (li) wishes to have them redelivered to him he must make an express .

•contract to that effect

(i).

842. The agister is not an insurer of the beasts taken in by him, Negligence but he must take reasonable and proper care of them, and is liable agister. for injury caused to them by negligence or neglect of such reasonable and proper care. Thus he must make good the loss in case of injury if he puts a horse in a field with heifers, knowing that a bull is kept on adjoining land separated only by a shallow ditch, and has several times been found in the field, although he does not know it is vicious (A;) or if he puts a horse in a field where there is or leaves a gate a barbed wire fence concealed by long grass (1) •open so that the agisted animal strays out and is lost {m), or or if he puts agisted animals on pasture that is injured {ii) dangerous by reason of the existence therein of wells, pits, or





shafts

(o).

843. The agister has no lien, in the absence of special agree- Agister has ment(2)), upon the beasts he agists, for he expends no skill upon no lien, them he merely takes care of them and supplies them with food, .and his remedy is to bring an action for the price of the grazing (p) he has, however, a sufiicient possessory property in them to entitle him to sue in trespass or trover (r). The custom of agistment is notorious, and agisted animals are Custom is not in the order and disposition of the agister within the meaning notorious, of the Bankruptcy Acts (s).

844. Agisted animals are not, at common law, privileged from (t) any more than cattle that have escaped on to ^

distress for rent



2 Bl. Com. 452. Corbett v. Pacldngton (1827), B. 56, 59. [1898] 1 (A) (/)

a

Smith

(j)

N. P.

V.

6B.

& C.

Compare Tamer

268.

Cook (1875), 1 Q. B. D. 79; Broadwater

v.

v. Stallibrass,

Blot (1817), Holt,

C. 547.

Smith V. Cook, supra. Turner v. Stallibrass, supra. (m) Broadwater v. Blot, supra.

(k) (l)

.

{n) Halestrap v. Gregory, [1895] 1 Q. B. 561. In tkis case an agisted korse kad escaped from the field owing to the negligence of the defendant's servant in leaving a gate open. The occupiers of the adjoining land endeavoured to drive the horse back through the gate, when it fell over a fence and was injured, and it was held that the injuiy was the natural consequence of the gate having been left open. (o) Booth V. Wilson (1817), 1 B. & Aid. b^,per Lord Ellenborough, C.J., at p. 16. Ip) Bichards v. Symons (1845), 8 Q. B. 90. Jackson v. Cummins (1839), 5 Iq) Chapman v. Allen (1632), Cro. Car. 271 M. & W. 342; JudsonY. Etheridge (1833), 1 C. & M. 743; Hobby v. Buell (1845),

1 0.

&

-

supra.

may (s)

K. 716.

Compare Sutton

(r)

v. Buck (1810), 2 Taunt. 302, 309, and Booth v. Wilson, In an indictment concerning the agisted animals, the property therein

be laid in the agister {B. v. Woodiuard (1796), 2 East, P. C. 653). Be Woodiuard, Ex parte Huggins (1886), 54 L. T. 683. See title BANK-

RUPTCY AND Insolvency. {t) Bac. Abr. Distress B. EoUe, Abr. 669. But it is perhaps open to argument that an exemption from liability to be distrained may be claimed on the ground

c c 2

Distress

agisted animals.

on

of