A MOTOR TRANSACTION.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17207, 26 July 1921, Page 4

A MOTOR TRANSACTION.

MAGISTERIAL COMMENT. "Where a"■ dealer in. second-hand motors procures a verbal option over a. second-hand motor-car, and, during the currency of the option, sells the car at a profit, making a falsa statement as to tho status under whieh'he is effecting the sale, which does . not affect the efficienoj of the motor, such , false statement does not affect the Bale to the dealer, nor that to .the purchaser from &im. In the absence of any fiduciary relations, there is no duty resting on the holder of an option to purchase, to disclose to the vendors the fact that he has effected a eale at a profit, to a third party, during the period of the option."' The above*, is the head-note to the reserved judgment delivered by Mr S. E. McCarthy, S.M., at the Magistrate's Court yesterday, in the case of Ethel Mary Elizabeth Leon-James (Mr, A. Brown) v. Dexter and Crozier (Mr R. T-wyneham), in which plaintiff claimed £4O, being shortage in accounting for tho prico of a motor-car alleged to, have been sold by the defendant company as agent lor the plaintiff. v In the course of his Mr McCarthy said that plaintiff was a widow who was anxious io dispose -of hor motor-car. The plaintiff had bought her second-hand car from the defendant company, and on April. 29th plaintiff gavo the defendant company a verbal option over her car at £BO. Thereafter Mr H. G. salesman for the defendant company, sold the car to Mr J. 0. dee for £l2O. During the negotiations, and before the sale, Mr Lane tokj Mr Cree that the company was selling the car for a widow, whose name he refused to'disclose, as agent, and that, as her means were straitened, .the company was charging no commission. The statement that the company wbb selling as agent for the- plaintiff was untrue to the knowledge of Mr Lane, as he know that it was selling under its option. The statement that the company .'was charging no commission was literally true, as the company's dividend, took tho form, not of commission, . but of profit on sale. Mr Lane's statement did not induce the sale of the car to Mr Cree, who said that he had bought the car on its merits. After the sale to Mr Cree, Mr Lane called on plaintiff, and without disclosing the sale to Mr Cree, purchased from plaintiff at £BO. Plaintiff was now seeking to recover the difference between this sum and £l2O. Tho defendant company was under no duty of disclosing %o the plaintiff the sale to Mr' Cree, continued the Magistrate, and the false statement made by Lane ou the defendant company's behalf affects neither tho salo by the plaintiff to the defendant com* panv nor the saje from that company to Mr Cree. That statement although kilown to be false, was more than a mere commendation to induce, a probable purchaser to buy. Commercial morality permitted it, and the law allowed it. It had uo reference, however remote, to the efficiency of the motor-car; it was just one or those falsehoods so common in business life for which the utterer'was not held logally responsible. . . ; If non-expert persons wished to sell second-hand motor-cars through motor dealers, it would be a* welTto remember that those gentlemen had, for the most part, no-higher standard of ethics than tho one-time horse-coper, and that dealings with them had better be reduced to writing. The dealer in the present case skilfully refrained from committing himself to any status until after he effected the Cree. If he had failed to effect he could have allowed the v .Qptipa to lapse. If the sale resufted (j&it had done), any profit was the eompfmy's alone. Judgment would be recorded' for the defendant company, with casts.