Introduction

• Author: Christian Turner
• Pages: 1-172

1. Introduction

1.1. Finders vs. Landowners

Armory v. Delamirie,

1 Strange 505; 93 E.R. 664 (Court of King’s Bench

1722)

PRATT, C.J.

The plaintiff being a chimney sweeper’s boy found a jewel

and carried it to the defendant’s shop (who was a

goldsmith) to know what it was, and delivered it into the

hands of the apprentice, who under pretence of weighing it,

took out the stones, and calling to the master to let him

know it came to three halfpence, the master offered the

boy the money, who refused to take it, and insisted to have

the thing again; whereupon the apprentice delivered him

back the socket without the stones. And now in trover

against the master these points were ruled:

That the finder of a jewel, though he does not by such

finding acquire an absolute property or ownership, yet he

has such a property as will enable him to keep it against all

but the rightful owner, and subsequently may maintain

trover.

That the action well lay against the master, who gives a

credit to his apprentice, and is answerable for his neglect.

As to the value of the jewel several of the trade were

examined to prove what a jewel of the finest water that

would fit the socket would be worth; and the Chief Justice

directed the jury, that unless the defendant did produce the

jewel, and shew it not to be of the finest water, they should

presume the strongest case against him, and make the value

of the best jewels the measure of their damages: which they

accordingly did.

2

Bridges v. Hawkesworth, 21 L.J. (Q.B.) 75

(1851)(footnotes omitted and paragraph breaks added)

This was an appeal brought by the plaintiff from the

Westminster County Court.

The plaintiff was a traveller for a large firm with which the

defendant, who was a shopkeeper, had dealings. On one

occasion (October 1847) the plaintiff who had called at the

defendant’s on business, on leaving the defendant’s shop

noticed and picked up a small parcel which was lying an the

shop floor. He immediately shewed it to the shopman, and

on opening it found it contained bank notes to the value of

55 pounds. The plaintiff told the defendant who came in

that he had found a parcel of notes, and requested the

defendant to keep them to deliver to the owner. The

defendant advertised the finding of them in the

newspapers, stating that they should be restored to the

owner on his properly describing them and paying the

expenses. Three years having elapsed and no owner

appearing to claim them, the plaintiff applied to the

defendant for them, offering to pay the expense of the

advertisements, and to indemnify the defendant against any

claim in respect of them. The defendant refused to deliver

them up, and the plaintiff consequently brought a plaint in

the County Court of Westminster to recover the notes. The

Judge decided that the defendant was entitled to keep them

as against the plaintiff, and gave judgment for the

defendant. It was found in the case that the plaintiff when

he handed the notes over to the defendant to deliver to the

true owner, did not intend to give up any title to them that

he might possess.

Judgment was now delivered by PATTESON, J.

The notes which are the subject of this action were

evidently dropped by mere accident in the shop of the

defendant by the owner of them. The facts do not warrant

the supposition that they had been deposited there

3

intentionally, nor has the case been at all put upon that

ground. The plaintiff found them on the floor, they being

manifestly lost by some one. The general right of the finder

to any article which has been lost as against all the world

except the true owner, was established in the case of Armory

v. Delamirie, which has never been disputed. This right

would clearly have accrued to the plaintiff had the notes

been picked up by him outside the shop of the defendant;

and if he once had the right, the case finds that he did not

intend by delivering the notes to the defendant to waive the

title (if any) which he had to them, but they were handed to

the defendant merely for the purpose of delivering them to

the owner should he appear. Nothing that was done

afterwards has altered this state of things; the

advertisements indeed in the newspapers referring to the

defendant had the same object: the plaintiff has tendered

the expense of those advertisements to the defendant, and

offered him an indemnity against any claim to be made by

the real owner, and has demanded the notes.

The case, therefore, resolves itself into the single point, on

which it appears that the learned Judge decided it: namely,

whether the circumstance of the notes being found inside

the defendant’s shop, gives him, the defendant, the right to

have them as against the plaintiff who found them. There is

no authority to be found in our law directly in point.

Perhaps the nearest case is that of Merry v. Green, but it

differs in many respects from the present. We were referred

in the course of the argument to the learned work of Von

Savigny, edited by Chief Justice Perry, but even this work,

full as it is of subtle distinctions and nice reasonings, does

not afford a solution of the present question.

It was well asked on the argument, if the defendant has the

right, when did it accrue to him? If at all, it must have been

antecedent to the finding by the plaintiff, for that finding

could not give the defendant any right. If the notes had

been accidentally kicked into the street, and then found by