Moot at Gray’s Inn: wife’s authority as agent

MOOT AT GRAY’S INN.

WIFE’S AUTHORITY AS AGENT.

A moot was held at Gray’s Inn on Monday before the Lord Chief Justice of England. Lord Justice Atkin, Sir Lewis Coward, K.C., Mr. Edward Clayton, K.C., and Mr. Manisty, K.C., Benchers, were also present. The following question was discussed:—

A clerk earning £300 a year lived with his wife and family in a suburban villa. He gave his wife a regular and sufficient housekeeping allowance, and she opened weekly accounts in his name with local shopkeepers for the supply of milk, bread and meat. For a time she paid the accounts regularly out of the allowance, but they then fell into arrear, and the milkman, the baker, and the butcher, who had no knowledge of the payment of the allowance, sued the husband in the County Court. Judgment was for the defendant. The plaintiffs appealed.

Mr. P. C. Lamb and Mr. E. Terrell appeared for the appellants; and Mr. C. W. Measor and Mr. B. H. Pereira represented the respondent.

The Lord Chief Justice, in giving his decision, said that the case of Ruddock v. Marsh (1 H. and N., 601), which had not been overruled, appeared to be a clear authority in favour of the appellants. On an appeal from the County Court, the Divisional Court had power to draw inferences of fact. The husband left the management of the household to his wife, and the inference ought to be drawn that he had not expressly forbidden her to pledge his credit to the extent of these weekly bills for milk, bread, and meat. It was usual for persons in the station of life of the respondent to buy such things on credit. Therefore judgment ought to be for the appellants. The judgment in Ruddock v. Marsh was good sense and good law. The case turned not upon the relationship of husband and wife, but upon that of principal and agent. It was an ostensible and not an actual authority which was the basis of liability. It arose from the fact of cohabitation.