AN INTERESTING CASE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12271, 15 May 1903, Page 5

AN INTERESTING CASE.

£50 DAMAGES AWARDED.

[BY TELEGRAPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION.] Thursday. The reserved judgment in the important suit in which W. B. Thorn and family sued L. T. Bowden, grocer, for damage suffered through the presence of arsenic in a quantity of rolled oats of the "K" brand, was given in the District Court by Judge Robinson. The objection for the defence, that the family were not parties to the contract, was held to be fatal; consequently only the plaintiffs (Mr. Thorn) claim was regarded, he being the actual purchaser*. The Court awarded £50 damages and costs, the judge holding that the buyer had relied on the skilled judgment of the seller on a specified article being supplied in the ordinary course of business. This, under section 16 of the Sale of Goods Act, 1895, implied that the condition of goods should be reasonably fit. As to the contention that there was no implied condition of fitness' in the present case, it depended entirely on the interpretation of the section quoted, not on an issue of tort or common law. A case throwing any real light on the subject' was that of Gillespie v. Chaney, Eggar, and Co., decided in 1893, under a section of the English Sale of Goods Act. This case referred to a supply of coal, where it was held that the words " provided that in case of contract for sale of a specified article, under a patent or other trade name, there is no implied condition as to fitness for any particular purpose," were obviously intended to meet the case, not of the supply of raw commodities or material, but manufactured articles. An appeal is probable.