An Exception to an Exception: The Art Gallery and Its Stock-In-Trade (Report‪)‬

In order to understand the reasoning in the case under discussion (1) it must be kept in mind that in English Common Law (and common law generally) the civil law maxim "en fait de meubles possession vaut titre" has no place. The starting point of the common law is protection of the rights of the owner and, whilst the obvious needs of commerce have led to the introduction of many exceptions, most of them now embodied in sale of goods legislation, (2) including the principle that an owner may be precluded by his conduct from denying the right of another to sell his goods, (3) the mere fact that the owner has left his goods in the possession of another is not regarded as vesting that other with apparent or ostensible authority to dispose of the ownership of the goods? Difficulties arising from this state of the law led to the passing of a series of Factors Acts, (5) the one currently in force in England being the Factors Act 1889. The core provision here, (6) is that where a mercantile agent is, with the consent of the owner, in possession of goods or of the documents of title of goods, any sale, pledge or other disposition of the goods made by him when acting in the ordinary course of business of a mercantile agent, shall be as valid as if he were expressly authorised by the owner to make the disposition provided that the person taking the goods acts in good faith and without notice that the mercantile agent was not authorised to effect the transaction. The Act defines a mercantile agent, (7) as one having in the customary course of his business as such an agent authority, either to sell the goods or to consign goods for sale or to buy goods or to raise money on the security of them. The Act of 1889 and its predecessors have been subject to a considerable process of judicial interpretation, and the reported cases form a substantial body of authority governing the operation of the Act, which must be borne in mind when addressing problems raised by the Act. (8)