Odger's English Common Law

TORTS ARISING OUT OF CONTRACTS. 635
BAILMENTS.
Actions of tort frequently arise in connection with bailments
and bailments, as a rule, are the result of contracts.
Whenever the owner of goods voluntarily hands over
possession of them to another person, not his servant,
upon a trust or under a contract that the other shall do
something with or to the goods, and then return them to the
owner or deliver them to his order, the transaction is called
a bailment. In every bailment there must be a delivery of
goods to the bailee, trust and confidence reposed by the bailor
in the bailee, and a corresponding duty on the bailee to
-execute the trust in the manner prescribed and with due
care and diligence. The goods remain the property of the
bailor. But the bailee has the possession of them ; and this
•carries with it the right to recover possession of them from
any wrongdoer who- dispossesses him of them during the
continuance of the bailment. 1
It is the duty of the bailee
with due diligence to execute the trust or perform the con-
tract, the consideration for which is the delivery of the goods
to him. 2 The degree of care, which the law exacts from him,
will vary with many circumstances ; if, for instance, he is paid
for his services, he must take greater care than if he be a
gratuitous bailee. And when the bailment is over, it is the
duty of the bailee to return the chattel bailed uninjured to
the bailor, or to deliver it undamaged at the destination
named by him. 3
It will be no valid excuse for a refusal by the bailee to
deliver the goods, that some third person asserts that they
were not the property of the bailor at the time of the bail-
ment. But the bailee may set up that the title of the bailor
has determined during the bailment, e.g., if, while it was in
the possession of the bailee, the bailor sold it to a third
person who now claims it. 4
i The Wink-field, [1902] P. 42.
2 Coggs v. Bernard (1703), 2 Lord Raym. 900 ; 1 Smith's L. C, 12th ed., 191.
* See Shaw 4' Co. v. Symm&nds 4' Stmt, Ltd., [1917] 1 K. B. 799. The bailee may
Co.,
.have a lien on the chattel for his charges : V. S. Steel Products Co. v. Of. TT r By. .
ri!U6] 1 A. C. 189 ; Green v. All Motors, Ltd., [1917] 1 K. B. 625.
"
Rogers v. Lambert, [1891] 1 Q. B. 318. ,
i