Page:Halsbury Laws of England v1 1907.pdf/752

 Bailment.

630 Sect.

^

fortiori the general rule stated

above applies if at the time purchase the existence of the concealed property was known to the buyer, but not to the seller, whilst, on the other hand, if its existence was known to the seller, but not to the buyer, the property belongs to the buyer and not to the seller, the knowledge of the seller raising a presumption in law that he intended to pass to the buyer his entire interest in the property, and not merely his interest in that portion of it which the buyer suppo .ed he was purchasing (f?).

1.

Deposit.

of the

1080. As against everyone save the true owner, the property

Eights of

^ chattel found in a public or quasi--p-ahiG place vests in the finder (e). And the finder can successfully maintain an action against any person, except the true owner, who may dispossess him of it. person possessed of a chattel has a good title as against every stranger, and anyone who takes it from the possessor, having no title in himself, is a wrongdoer, and cannot defend himself by showing that the real title was in some third person (/). Consequently a finder in actual possession of a chattel, the property of another, can recover its value in an action of trover against a wrongdoer who takes it from him (g). Moreover, as against the wrongdoer who dispossesses the actual finder, a jury may make every possible inference (h) not only as to the property in the chattel, but also as to its value ; therefore, the presumption being, in the absence of the production of the chattel by the tort-feasor, that the property converted was of the finest quality, the damages may be assessed by the jury on

tMrd^ artieT^

A

that basis

(i).

public auction, a secretary in which he afterwards discovered, in a secret drawer, At the time of a purse containing money, which he appropriated to his own use. the sale neither the buyer nor the seller knew that the bureau contained anything whatever, and it was held by Parke, B., at p. 631, that, "though there was a delivery of the secretar}^, and a lawful property in it thereby vested in the j)laintiff, there was no delivery so as to give a lawful possession of the purse and

money."

Merry v. Gh-een (1841), 7 M. & W. 623. Bridges v. Hawkesworth (1851), 21 L. J. (q. b.) 75, where it was held that a person who found on the floor of a shop a packet of banknotes which had been accidentally dropped there by a stranger, who could not be found, was entitled to them as against everyone except the true owner, on the ground that the shop was But chattels found in the sea, whether j'etsam, that is, sunk a gwasz-public place. under water; flotsam, afloat on the surface of the water; or ligan, sunk under or chattels cast ashore by shipwreck, belong to the water, but tied to a buoy Crown if the true owner fails to appear, unless the right to them has been granted to a subject. The same principle applies to the finding of whales or sturgeon, whether in the sea or cast ashore (1 Bl. Com. '290). See, further, titles Admiralty (d) (e)

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Shipping and Navigation. (/) Jeffries Y. Great Western Bail. Co. (1856), 5 E. & B. 802, j3er Lord Campbell, C.J., at p. 805. Str. (g) Ibid., 'per Crompton, J., at p. 807 ; Armory v. Delamirie (1722), 1 505, and 1 Sm. L. C. (Uth ed.) 356. As to the right to sue in trover, see title

Trover and Conversion. Mortimer Y. Cradock (1843), 12 L. J. (c. P.) 166, per Tindal, C.J., at p. 167. See Mortimer v. Cradock, supra, and Armory v. Delamirie, supra. As to cases where the maxim "Omnia prsesumuntur contra spoliatorem " shifts 189, at the onus of proof, see Williamson v. Rover Cycle Co., [1901] 2 Ir. (/i)

(i)

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K

p. 202, affirmed,

[1901] 2 Ir. R. 615.