Davies v Sumner
Date
15 November 1984
Legislation
Trade Descriptions Act 1968, s.1(1)
Keywords
meaning of business; meaning of trade
Counsel
Anthony Scrivener QC and Derek Halbert, E Somerset Jones QC and Andrew Sander
Solicitors:
Sharpe Pritchard & Co, agents for E R Ll Davies, Mold; Gamlin Kelly & Beattie, Rhyl.
Judge:
Lords Keith, Elwyn-Jones, Bridge, Brandon and Templeman
Court:
House of Lords
Reported:
[1984] 3 All ER 831, [1984] 1 WLR 1301
Summary
The defendant was tried in the magistrates court for an offence contrary s1(1) of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 relating to vehicle odometer clocking for the sale of cars "in the course of a trade or business".
The defendant was a self-employed courier whose whole time was spent transporting films, videos and other material for a television company and used a ford car for this purpose. He decided to trade his old car in for a new one and part exchanged it at a local dealer. The odometer on the car was seen to show a recorded mileage of 18,100 miles, and the appearance of the car was consistent with this. The odometer was fitted with five digits only, and in fact had gone right round the clock, so that the true mileage was 118,100.
Decision
The House of Lords concluded that:
- there was no doubt that the defendant when he traded in the car applied a false trade description to it by representing it had only travelled 18,100 miles;
- when the car used for the defendant’s business needed replacing he traded it in and it was thus clear that the transaction was reasonably incidental to the defendant’s business; however
- the expression 'in the course of a trade or business' in the context of an Act having consumer protection as its primary purpose conveys the concept of some degree of regularity; but
- that need for some degree of regularity does not, however, involve that a one-off adventure in the nature of trade, carried through with a view to profit, would not fall within s 1(1) because such a transaction would itself constitute a trade.
Their lordships reached the conclusion that although the defendant’s car was used for providing the courier service, it was not something he exploited as stock-in-trade, and the occasional sale of some worn out piece of shop equipment would not fall within the scope of the Trade Descriptions Act.