Barnes v Hector

• Jurisdiction: Antigua and Barbuda
• Court: High Court (Antigua)
• Judge: Bishop, J
• Judgment Date: 15 September 1978
• Neutral Citation: AG 1978 HC 38
• Docket Number: 86 of 1978
• Date: 15 September 1978

High Court

Bishop, J.

86 of 1978

Barnes

and

Hector

Dane Hamilton for plaintiff.

Henson Stevens for defendant

Contract - Sale of car — Whether condition of roadworthiness had been breached — Whether this could be treated as a breach of warranty and not as a ground for repudiating the plaintiff failed to prove that the car was nit roadworthy — Plaintiff non-suited — Summary Jurisdiction Act, Cap. 80, s.37.

Bishop, J

1 Kenneth Barnes, the plaintiff in this case, saw Wilcil Hector the defendant in this case, in a green Hillman Imp motor car, and asked him if he was selling the car. Hector replied in the affirmative. Barnes asked whether it was “running in good condition” (by which he may have meant roadworthy) and Hector told him that it was, except that there was “a little missing” in the engine. The price which Hector was asking for the car was $800.00. This discussion occurred on the 13 ^th June this year, and Barnes, being interested in the car at the price demanded, asked Hector to meet him, with the car, at the Government's mechanical workshop. They both went — in the car -from de Souza Road and there the plaintiff spoke with a mechanic named Eddie Barnes, who looked over the car. It was elicited by the cross examination of the defendant that Eddie Barnes checked the car. He asked the defendant to start the engine, he removed the bonnet and looked around the engine. Then Barnes enquired of the defendant what was the selling price, to which the defendant replied $800.00. Eddie Barnes said that the engine had a miss in it and asked if he — the defendant would accept less than $800.00 to the defendant who gave him a receipt. It is admitted by the plaintiff that he was seeking the advice of Eddie Barnes, as a mechanic. It is undisputed that neither the plaintiff nor the defendant was a mechanic. Indeed the plaintiff explained the extent of his mechanical knowledge in these words: “I am not a mechanic and I don't know anything about mechanic directly. If I have a car running and I find the nuts slack or so I will tighten up. If the machine won't start I take out the spark plugs and clean them. I will clean the battery terminal and set it back on. If it don't give me no result from that I will go further to the mechanic.” The defendant said that he worked as a Chef at Antigua Beach Hotel. So that it is clear that the plaintiff sought to rely on knowledge of Eddie Barnes as a skilled mechanic, and one whom the plaintiff knew to be a mechanic all his (Eddie Barnes) life. Whether the examination of the car by Eddie Barnes was commensurate with the skill he held himself out as possessing and whether the plaintiff would have a cause of action against Eddie Barnes is not for me to determine in the case before me. What is clear from the evidence is that Eddie Barnes advised the plaintiff to buy the car and the plaintiff acted on such advice and bought it.

2 After the plaintiff paid for the car, as it then stood at the Government work-shop, the defendant drove it, with the plaintiff's approval, to a house east of the Health Centre, where the defendant's wife joined them. Then the defendant drove to his home at Potters Village where his wife disembarked. The plaintiff and defendant then went as far as the East bus station, and there the plaintiff took delivery of the car. At the time of the purchase the plaintiff became aware that the car had no rear view mirror or jack and the following day he purchased these items.

3 The morning after he bought the car, when the plaintiff went to it some time before 8:00 a.m., he saw that it appeared to be leaking oil. He took steps to confirm that this was so. He had the engine “washed out”, as he called it, at Percival's Gas Station on Fort Road, then he went nearby at a Mr. Lorde, where, along with Mr. Lorde, he jacked up he car. The plaintiff said that he saw that the car was leaking oil “from where it hold the oil in the oil case”. He noticed further that the leak was from the area of a nut where he saw a crack; he put more oil in the engine and the car leaked more.

4 I ought to say here that Kenneth Barnes was prompted to take this action, because, on the morning following the sale of the car, the defendant visited him and when he told the defendant that the car was leaking oil, the defendant said that it was not a leak, but could be, what the defendant described as an “overrun”.

5 Now having found that the car was leaking, the plaintiff returned home, and if I understood him correctly he did not use the car thereafter, but a week or so later he took it to Barnes' workshop where he spoke with Barnes, and from there to the Government workshop where he spoke with a welder. In the words of the plaintiff:

“He start was weld it. When he was welding one part of the crack it start to break another part. He keep on welding it. I left it with him and I took it the next day. Tuesday, afternoon.”

6 According to the plaintiff...