Lloyd v Grace Smith & Co

March 28.

EARL LOREBURN L.C. moved that the order appealed from be reversed and the judgment of Scrutton J. restored, and intimated that the reasons for their Lordships' decision would be given at a later date when all the members of the House who were present at the hearing of the argument would be able to attend and express their opinions.

July 19. Their Lordships now gave their reasons for this decision.

EARL LOREBURN. My Lords, the facts of this case, except in immaterial points, are quite clear and undisputed.

The appellant, Mrs. Lloyd, had bought some property, and thus had come to know of the defendant, a solicitor. She had doubts about having got her money's worth, and went to the defendant's office to inquire. When there she saw one Sandles, the defendant's managing clerk, and was induced by him to give him instructions to sell or realize this property, and for that purpose to give him the deeds and to sign two documents which she neither read nor knew the tenor of, but which put into Sandles' possession her interest therein. She gave him the deeds as the defendant's representative. Having got them and the signed documents, he dishonestly disposed of this lady's property and pocketed the proceeds. That is the whole story as it is now either found or admitted because it was incontestable.

It is clear to my mind, upon these simple facts, that the jury ought to have been directed, if they believed them, to find for the plaintiff. The managing clerk was authorized to receive deeds and carry through sales and conveyances, and to give notices on the defendant's behalf. He was instructed by the plaintiff, as the representative of the defendant's firm, - and she so treated him throughout - to realize her property. He took advantage of the opportunity so afforded him as the defendant's representative to get her to sign away all that she possessed and put the proceeds into his own pocket. In my opinion there is an end of the case. It was a breach by the defendant's agent of a contract made by him as defendant's agent to apply diligence and honesty in carrying through a business within his delegated powers and entrusted to him in that capacity. It was also a tortious act committed by the clerk in conducting business which he had a right to conduct honestly, and was instructed to conduct, on behalf of his principal.

At the hearing the learned judge, no doubt with a view to avoid the risk of a new trial in so small a case, appears to have been prevailed upon to put no less than six questions, with subdivisions making in all ten questions, to the jury. Some of them were quite immaterial. Others were framed in order to raise a point of law supposed to be affirmed by Willes J. in the case of Barwick v. English Joint Stock Bank⁽¹⁾, in a passage which admitted of…