Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 28, 2025
The term "Involuntary Bailee" may or may not be a correct piece of legal terminology; at all events, it sounds very imposing, and can be easily explained. Most of us in our humble way are or have been Involuntary Bailees.
But, as we have seen, a depositary is a true possessor under the common-law theory, although his intent is not self-regarding, and he holds solely for the benefit of the owner. There is a class of cases besides those of bailees and tenants, which will probably, although not necessarily, be decided one way or the other, as we adopt the test of an intent to exclude, or of the animus domini.
Chief Justice Popham probably borrowed his distinction between paid and unpaid bailees from that work, where common carriers are mentioned as an example of the former class. A little earlier, reward made no difference. /1/
The right to these remedies extends not only to pledgees, lessees, and those having a lien, who exclude their bailor, but to simple bailees, as they have been called, who have no interest in the chattels, no right of detention as against the owner, and neither give nor receive a reward. /1/
But the short reason for disbelieving that there was any warrant in the old law for making the carrier an insurer against damage is, that there seem to be no early cases in which bailees were held to such a responsibility, and that it was not within the principle on which they were made answerable for a loss by theft.
In truth, there were two sets of duties, one not peculiar to bailees, arising from the assumpsit or public calling of the defendant, as just explained; the other, the ancient obligation, peculiar to them as such, of which Southcote's Case was an example.
Chief Justice Popham had sanctioned a distinction between paid and unpaid bailees, hence it was deemed prudent to lay a reward. Negligence was of course averred; and finally it became frequent to allege an obligation by the law and custom of the realm. This last deserves a little further attention.
The meaning of the rule that all bailees have the possessory remedies is, that in the theory of the common law every bailee has a true possession, and that a bailee recovers on the strength of his possession, just as a finder does, and as even a wrongful possessor may have full damages or a return of the specific thing from a stranger to the title.
The test of the theory of possession which prevails in any system of law is to be found in its mode of dealing who have a thing within their power, but not own it, or assert the position of an owner for with regard to it, bailees, in a word. It is therefore, as a preliminary to understanding the common-law theory of possession, to study the common law with regard to bailees.
In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, it is about as easy and cheap to prove at least a prima facie title as it is to prove possession. In the next place, and this was the importance of the last Lecture to this subject, the common law has always given the possessory remedies to all bailees without exception.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking