''Smith v Land and House Property Corporation'' (1884) LR 28 Ch D 7 is an

English contract law English contract law is the body of law that regulates legally binding agreements in England and Wales. With its roots in the lex mercatoria and the activism of the judiciary during the industrial revolution, it shares a heritage with countries ...

case, concerning

misrepresentation In common law jurisdictions, a misrepresentation is a false or misleading '' R v Kylsant'' 931/ref> statement of fact made during negotiations by one party to another, the statement then inducing that other party to enter into a contract. The m ...

. It holds that a statement of opinion can represent that one knows certain facts, and therefore one may have still made a misrepresentation.

Facts

Land and House Property Corp (LHP) contracted with Mr. Smith to buy the freehold title of the Marine Hotel at

Walton-on-the-Naze Walton-on-the-Naze is a seaside town on the North Sea coast and (as Walton le Soken) a former civil parish, now in the parish of Frinton and Walton, in the Tendring district in Essex, England. It is north of Clacton and south of the port of Ha ...

. Mr. Smith had advertised that it was let to Mr. Fleck, Land and House agreed to buy the Hotel. However, Mr. Fleck, who had been overdue with rent, went bankrupt just before transfer of title. Land and House Property Corp. refused to complete the transaction, defending Smith's specific performance suit on the basis that the description of Fleck's "virtues" was grounds for misrepresentation. Ben-Ishai, Stephanie
"Contracts: Cases and Commentaries (8th Ed)"
. Carswell, 2009, p.359.

H.H. Asquith Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928), generally known as H. H. Asquith, was a British statesman and Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of ...

appeared for the landlord.

Judgment

Bowen LJ Charles Synge Christopher Bowen, Baron Bowen, (1 January 1835 – 10 April 1894) was an English judge. Early life Bowen was born at Woolaston in Gloucestershire – his father, Rev. Christopher Bowen, originally of Hollymount, County Mayo, b ...

held there was a misrepresentation relied on by LHP. He held that statements of opinions can often involve statements of facts, because, "if the facts are not equally known to both sides, then a statement of opinion by the one who knows the facts best involves very often a statement of a material fact, for he impliedly states that he knows facts which justify his opinion." Bowen LJ said with his opinion the landlord "avers that the facts peculiarly within his knowledge are such as to render that opinion reasonable." And it "amounts at least to an assertion that nothing has occurred in the relations between the landlords and the tenant which can be considered to make the tenant an unsatisfactory one... . In my opinion a tenant who has paid his last quarter’s rent by driblets under pressure must be regarded as an undesirable tenant." Given that the misrepresentation did induce the LHP to enter the contract initially, Mr. Smith was not entitled to specific performance of the contract.

Baggallay LJ Sir Richard Baggallay PC (1816 – 1888) was a British barrister, politician, and judge. After serving as Attorney-General under Benjamin Disraeli from 1874 to 1875, Baggallay was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal in Chancery (Lord Justice o ...

and

Fry LJ Sir Edward Fry, (4 November 1827 – 19 October 1918) was an English Court of Appeal of England and Wales, Lord Justice of Appeal (1883–1892) and an arbitrator on the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Biography Joseph Fry (1795-1879) and Mar ...

concurred.

Notes

{{reflist, 2 English misrepresentation case law Court of Appeal (England and Wales) cases 1884 in case law 1884 in British law

Facts

Judgment

See also

Notes