Pitt Son & Badgery Ltd v Proulefco SA [1984] HCA 6

High Court of Australia Gibbs C.J. Wilson, Brennan, Deane and Dawson JJ. Pitt Son & Badgery Ltd v Proulefco SA [1984] HCA 6

ORDER Appeal dismissed with costs. Feb. 17 Gibbs C.J.

The present case depends on a question of fact which falls within a narrow compass and it is possible to give judgment immediately.

The respondent was the plaintiff in an action brought in the Supreme Court of New South Wales against the appellant for damages for breach of duty as a bailee. The action failed at first instance but succeeded on appeal. The appellant, a wool broking company, was at all material times the lessee and occupier of a wool store at Hannell Street, Newcastle. At some time before 29 November 1979, the appellant had received eighty-six bales of greasy wool, which it intended to sell by auction and which it stored in the wool store at Hannell Street. The auction was held in the Newcastle Wool Exchange on 29 November 1979 and the respondent purchased the wool. Under cl. 4 of the conditions of the contract for sale, the respondent was not entitled to take delivery of the wool from the store until it had been paid for in full. It was provided by cl. 10 of those conditions that the wool should be removed within twenty-eight days from the Wednesday of the auction sale series. The eighty-six bales remained with other wool in the wool store until it was destroyed by fire in the early morning of 6 December 1979. The respondent had paid for the wool on 5 December 1979.

It was accepted by the appellant in the Supreme Court and before us that the appellant was a bailee, with duties analogous to those of a bailee for reward, and that the relevant duty was to take such care of the goods as was reasonable in the circumstances. It was further accepted that the appellant bore the onus of disproving negligence. It was candidly conceded by Mr. Staff for the appellant that there was no evidence that the respondent knew where the wool was stored, or under what conditions it was stored. The conditions under which it was in fact kept in the wool store were described by the learned trial judge in his judgment as follows: