Bloxam v Sanders
Rule established
The passing of property does not carry with it a right to immediate possession. Where the price is unpaid and no credit has been given, the seller may retain the goods until payment or tender, and the buyer cannot sue for them though he is the owner.
Facts
- Goods were sold under a contract by which the property in them passed to the buyer.
- The goods remained in the seller's possession.
- No term of credit had been agreed between the parties.
- The buyer did not pay the price, nor did he tender it.
- The buyer claimed to be entitled to the goods as owner and sought to recover them from the seller.
Issue
- Whether a buyer in whom the property in goods has vested may demand delivery, or sue for the goods, while the price remains unpaid and unrendered and no credit has been given.
Held
- He may not. The seller was entitled to retain the goods. Bayley J held that where goods are sold and nothing is said as to the time of delivery or payment, the buyer's right to possession is not absolute but depends on payment. Until the price is paid or tendered, the seller's right to retain continues, and the buyer, though owner, has no present right of possession on which to found an action.
Ratio Decidendi
A contract of sale creates reciprocal obligations. The seller's undertaking to deliver and the buyer's undertaking to pay are concurrent conditions unless the parties have displaced that arrangement by granting credit. The transfer of the general property is therefore not the same as a transfer of the right to possession. Retention pending payment is not a wrong to the owner but the exercise of a right the law leaves in the seller precisely because he has not been paid.
How to use it in an exam
- The classical foundation of the unpaid seller's lien under S.47 of the Sale of Goods Act 1930, and of the opening words of S.46(2), which preserve the seller's rights against the goods notwithstanding that property has passed.
- Use to make the examiner's favourite point: the lien is a right against the goods and is available even though the buyer is the owner.
- State the three cases in which S.47(1) allows a lien: where the goods have been sold without any stipulation as to credit; where the goods have been sold on credit but the term of credit has expired; and where the buyer becomes insolvent.
- Read with S.32, which makes delivery and payment concurrent conditions unless otherwise agreed.
- Remember that the lien is possessory: under S.49 it is lost by delivery to a carrier for transmission without reserving a right of disposal, by the buyer or his agent lawfully obtaining possession, or by waiver.
Source
Source: (1825) 4 B & C 941; 107 ER 1309; classical authority that the unpaid seller's lien survives the passing of property; CITATION NOT CONFIRMED from a free source, the English Reports are paywalled; check against Benjamin on Sale before exam use
This is an educational summary, not the judgment itself. Cite the reported version in professional or academic work.