Page:Halsbury Laws of England v1 1907.pdf/750

 —

Bailment.

528 Sect.

1.

Deposit.

Involuntary deposit.

immediate control, is deposited upon the land or the premises of another. For example, timber carried by the tide in a navigable river and left at low water on the towing path {t), fruit dropped on a neighbour's garden, or a tree which has fallen on the field of an adjacent proprietor. In such cases, so long as the involuntary depositary does no overt act to the chattel thus deposited on his land, he incurs no responsibility to the true owner in respect thereof. But, if he interferes with it, an implied contract of bailment is created, with all its obligations and responsibilities, and if he not only interferes with it, but uses it for his own purposes, such user amounts to a conversion, and a fortiori this is the case, if he intentionally misuses it (u).

1078. Where a chattel is sent, without request or arrangement, by one person to another, who does not hold himself out to receive it, the person to whom it is sent is under no liability to the sender for its safe custody or protection (v); but he must, not use it or otherwise convert it to his own use(w). Conversely, it has been suggested that where a man without previous request from the owner offers to take charge of a chattel, such an offer constitutes an inducement to the bailor to part with the possession of the chattel, and binds the bailee to exercise special care in its custody (x). of course,

Sub-Sect.

When

finder

of a chattel IS a bailee.

Finding of

3.

Chattels,

1079. In the case of a casual finding of a lost chattel in a public there is no obliojation on the finder to take charpje ^ of it ^ ^ place,

it

was held that the evidence was

sufficient to convict the

person of the statutory

oftence of larceny as a bailee, {t)

Nicholson

v.

Chapman

Hy.

(1793), 2

Bl, 254, ^gr

Eyre,

C.J., at p. 257, where tide, floated

timber moored in a navigable river, within the flux and reflux of the

from the place where it was deposited, till the tide fell and left it again upon the banks of the river, and it was thence voluntarily conveyed by a person to a place of safety it was held that such person had no lien on the timber for any expense he incurred in so removing it, but was liable to an action of trover unless he delivered it up to the owner on demand compare Binstead v. Buck Qwcere whether he could have maintained an action (1777), 2 Wm. Bl. 1117. against the owner for compensation semhle he could not. (u) Mulgrave v. Ogden (1591), Cro. (Eliz.) 219 IsaacJc v. Clark (1613), 2 Bulst.







306. (v) Howard v. Harris (1884), 1 Cab. & El. 253, where the plaintiff, an author, being asked by the defendant, the lessee of a theatre, to send him a sketch or synopsis of his play, sent the whole manuscript, which the defendant lost, and it was held that no duty of any kind was cast on the defendant by sending him something he had not asked for (see per Williams, J., at p. 254). This decision accords with that in Lethbridge v. Phillips (1819), 2 Stark. 544, where a picture was without defendant's knowledge or request sent to defendant's house, and was there

injured. {w) This seems to follow on principle compare the cases cited in note {t), supra, and the analogous principles governing the buyer's acceptance of goods not in accordance with the contract, for which see Grimoldby v. Wells (1875), L. E. 10 0. P. 391 Humor v. Groves (1855), 15 C. B. 667; Chapman v. Morton (1843), 11 M. & W. 534, now embodied in Sale of Goods Act, 1893, (56 & 57 Vict. c. 71), s. 35. (x) Jones on Bailments, 4th ed. pp. 47, 121, following Pothier and the Roman lawyers. Contra, Story on Bailments, s. 82.



-