Ministry of Supply Gave Loads Unauthorized Driver
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JUDGMENT was given in the King's Bench Division, last week, in an action which arose because three lorryloads of scrap lead, collected at the Ministry of Supply depot at Llansarnlet, Swansea, were not delivered to the consignee.
The Transport and Export Co., Ltd., of Brazennose Street, Manchester, sued R. Davis (Haulage), Ltd., Poplar High Street, London, E.I4, claiming £2,120 damages for negligence. The defendant company, which denied negligence, was employed by the plaintiff to transport the lead.
On September 15, 1948, there .arrived at the depot a driver called Last. The foreman was suspicious about him, but was assured by another driver that he was O.K." Lead was loaded into Last's lorry, but it never reached the people for whom it was intended. How Last obtained possession of a delivery order, which he had no right to have, was a complete mystery, and Mr. ,R. T. Monier-Williams, for the defendant, had argued that, as it was a mystery, the court could not find that the order got into Last's hands through the defendant's negligence.
Mr. Fearnley-Whittingstall, K.C., for the plaintiff, had contended that the onus of explaining how Last got the order was on the defendant, and Mr. Justice,Hallett held that the defendant had not discharged that onus.
The judge said that the Ministry was entitled to debit. that lorryload against the buyer, because it was delivered to a person who, as between the Ministry and the buyer, was authorized to receive it.
Dealing with the second and third missing loads, Mr. Justice Hallett said that Last arrived again -on September 20, and took away another load, and on September 24 he obtained the third, load. On those two occasions he did not produce a delivery order, and the depot officials did not telephone to the defendant and obtain verbal. authority. There was no legal.justification for permitting Last to take away the other two loads. The Ministry had no authority from the buyer to deliver loads to anyone who appeared in the way Last did, ., Accordingly, hislerdship had come to the conclusion that the claim succeeded in respect of the first lorry load, but failed in respect of the second and third loads. Judgment was entered for the plaintiffs for the sum of £566 5s. 6d., with costs.
A stay of executiortpending a possible appeal was granted.