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up their caps with the people who are so eagerly demanding the exact facilities which this Gold Mine Company strove to obtain, by the representation that they were a French company, and under that representation actually received 66,000l. !

No man has more thoroughly investigated this subject than Mr. Wm. Brown, who, in his speech in the House of Commons in December, 1852, emphatically said, "Limited liability will impair the general credit of the nation;" and again he remarked in the same debate that "It was an important fact that many of the States of America, which, prior to 1837, granted charters of limited liability to their banks, had found them productive of such serious consequences that they had refused to renew them on the same terms." "These shrewd people were retracing their steps from known evils." If ever the maxim of respice finem applied to a project for relaxing the securities of credit and diminishing commercial confidence, it applies to the advocacy of LIMITED LIABILITY.

VOL. LIII. NO. CVI.

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COMMON LAW.

LIENS AND LIABILITIES OF INNKEEPERS.

Broadwood v. Granara, 24 L. J., Exch. 1.

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AW in England suffers greatly from the mischievous activity of reporters, the multiplicity of reports, and the trade carried on and livelihoods gained by printing every syllable that every judge utters, whether with deliberation or without, on any kind of case that requires judgment. When will this objectionable practice be put a stop to? The difficulties in the law relating to innkeepers, their liabilities and liens, greatly result from this mischief.

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Obiter dicta, and, in some instances, individual judgments, have crept into the law on the subject, and being of a somewhat conflicting nature, have rendered it about as doubtful a branch of common law to define and apply as any vexed question in the range of ordinary jurisprudence.

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In our last number we discussed the law as it now stands on the liabilities of lodging-housekeepers, and which exempts from liability where a loss is occasioned by a servant who though employed by them has been hired with due care as regards character. The liabilities of lodginghouse-keepers were distinguished from those of innkeepers, as settled in the case of Dawson v. Cholmeley, 5 Q. B. 164, where it was held that an innkeeper is always prima facie liable where the damage happen in his inn. This is somewhat limited by Armistead v. Wilde, also in the Queen's Bench, to which we alluded (52 Law Mag. 158), where a traveller had imprudently exposed money, and left it insecurely. Still, as regards liability, that of an innkeeper and a lodginghouse-keeper are very differently apportioned, the latter being much more protected than the former; and yet the former cannot and the latter may refuse admission to a guest. SMART • to sonte nult ro zixo

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The law as to lien is more similar, but this point has been mooted and somewhat unsettled in the late case of Broadwood v. Granara, 24 Law Journ. Exch. 1. An innkeeper received and lodged a guest, who brought with him a piano, which the host knew to be a hired one, and to belong not to the guest but to the plaintiff. It was detained for rent, &c., by the innkeeper, who was sued for it in trover by the owner.

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It has long been settled law that an innkeeper's lien attaches generally to all the goods brought by his guest, Smith v. Dearden, 6. Com. B. 132; Turrill v. Crawley, 13 Q. B. 197, &c. But inasmuch as there are limitations to his liability so are there to his lien. His obligation, for example, to receive all comers, with the usual accompaniments of guests who frequent inns, can, it was contended, scarcely extend to the reception of pianofortes. And thus it was ingeniously and successfully argued that as there was no obligation to receive, so there was no right to detain one. This formed the gist of the case in Broadwood v. Granara had the innkeeper a lien, or had he not? It was held that he had not, but it was clearly so held on three distinct grounds. Baron Parke said in the argument:-" Suppose the innkeeper had refused to let Hababier, the guest, bring the piano into his inn, he could not have been indicted for such refusal. He has a lien only on such things as he is bound by law to take in." Here is a definite principle. We will call it rule No. 1. Chief Baron Pollock arrives at the same conclusion on a ground distinct from it, and seems to lay stress on the time of the introduction of the instrument as the turning point. "Here (he says) the article was brought into the inn after the guest had been there some time." Again," it was brought for a temporary purpose only." This seems to be Rule No. 2. Both learned barons however dwell on the knowledge of the defendant, that the piano did not belong to the guest. It was reserved for Mr. Baron Platt to make this scienter his turning point and Rule No. 3. "If," says the learned baron, "a stranger brings an article to an inn to which he is not entitled, and the innkeeper receives it not knowing that the party has no right to it, he is at liberty to retain it for his bill;" and it was only on the strength of the circumstance that the innkeeper

in this case did know that the guest had not the ownership that Baron Platt held that he had no right to lien on it. Compare this with the dictum of Baron Parke, in his judgment; "An innkeeper has no lien except upon such goods as he is bound to receive;" it is obvious that the obligation to receive cannot depend on the ownership, for how is the innkeeper to ascertain it? If it be a reasonable article for a guest to bring [a box would be, a bear would not be], then he is bound to receive it, and therefore has a lien on it according to Baron Parke. But according to Baron Platt it is determined not by the obligation to receive, but by the ignorance of non-ownership in the guest! To leave the law in still greater perplexity, we find the Chief Baron interlocuting a doubt what might be the law "if the instrument had belonged to the guest." Are we to assume, that because it was particularly obliging of, instead of being obligatory on, the landlord to receive a piano, that therefore he has no lien? From Baron Parke's judgment this certainly would appear to follow.

In the absence of any express decision on the point, may we venture to suggest the rationale of the law as it appears to us? No one is more likely to be imposed on than an innkeeper by rogues and defaulters, and the very law which requires him to open his doors to all comers ought to enlarge his powers of getting paid. Instead of limiting his lien to cases in which he had given no extra accommodation and making his liberality disentitle him to security, why not hold that he shall have a lien on all goods brought by his guests to his inn, whether bound or not bound to receive them, unless he knows that they do not belong to the guest when he takes them in? He gives credit on the faith of his lien, and to the value of the goods to which it extends. It is but fair to make it then co-extensive with all he receives and naturally presumes to be his guest's. If this were known, no mischief could arise to lenders and bailors; they would have simply to exercise due caution as to the confidence they reposed in borrowers; or, if occasion required, to limit it by notice to the landlord as Mr. Broadwood did. We, therefore, agree with Mr. Baron Platt, and indorse Rule No. 3; but inasmuch as we are not a Supreme Court of Appeal, it is

certainly desirable that the law should be a little more decided according to some distinct principle the next time it arises for judgment.

INTEREST IN POLICY OF ASSURANCE.

Dalby v. India and London Assurance Company, 24 Law Journ., C. P. 2.

THE law laid down in Godsall v. Boldero, 9 East, 72, and heretofore acted on as to the continuance of interest in the life of another person being essential to the claim on the Company, is at length finally reversed. It was always an absurdity. It converted the policy into a mere indemnity, and immediately the risk ended, so did the claim of the assurer. It was overlooked that he had been paying just as high a rate as though the policy was, under all circumstances, necessarily payable at the death of the party insured.

The statute of 14 Geo. III. c. 48, is held to mean an interest at the time of the insurance being effected-not the interest existing at the time of the death. This is a Judgment in error from the Queen's Bench, and we give the following extract from it, as it is one of the most important decided for a length of time:

"The right to recover, therefore, is limited to the amount of the interest at the time of affecting the policy. Upon that value the assured must have the amount of premium calculated. If he states it truly, no difficulty can occur. He pays in the annuity for life the fair value of the sum payable on death. If he misrepresents by overrating the value of the interest, it is his own fault in paying more in the way of annuity than he ought, and he can recover only the true value of the interest in respect of which he effected the policy; but that value he can recover. Thus the liability of the insurer becomes constant and uniform to pay an unvarying sum on the death of the cestui que vie in consideration of an unvarying and uniform premium paid by the insured. The bargain is fixed as to amount on both sides. This construction is effected by reading the word 'hath' as referring to the time of effecting the policy. By the first section the assured is prohibited from effecting an insurance on a life or on an event wherein he shall have no interest, that is, at the time of insuring; and then the 3rd section requires that

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