| Lewis v Averay | |
|---|---|
 Richard Greene, not the rogue | |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Citation(s) | [1972] 1 QB 198, [1971] 3 WLR 603 |
| Keywords | |
| Mistake about identity, fraudulent misrepresentation | |
Lewis v Averay [1972] 1 QB 198 is a case in English contract law on fraudulent misrepresentation or "mistake" about identity.
Impersonating Richard Greene, a popular actor from The Adventures of Robin Hood (TV series) , a rogue gave this false name to the plaintiff who had advertised the sale of his car, and offered to buy it for the advertised price, £450. Subsequently, the rogue appended his signature that clearly displayed "R. A. Greene" on a cheque which he presented to the seller. As a result, he was granted the chance of taking away the car. The cheque bounced and the buyer was indeed not Richard Greene. The rogue sold the car to Averay, a third party who purchased the car in good faith. An action was brought against Averay for conversion.
The Court of Appeal, following Phillips v Brooks held that despite his mistake, the plaintiff had completed a contract with the rogue. Lord Denning MR held there was no operative mistake and the property had passed to the rogue. [1] Therefore Mr. Averay got to keep the car. He held there was nothing to displace the Ingram v Little presumption here, and that case had ‘special facts’.
Phillimore LJ concurred.
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Interpreting contracts in English law is an area of English contract law, which concerns how the courts decide what an agreement means. It is settled law that the process is based on the objective view of a reasonable person, given the context in which the contracting parties made their agreement. This approach marks a break with previous a more rigid modes of interpretation before the 1970s, where courts paid closer attention to the formal expression of the parties' intentions and took more of a literal view of what they had said.
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Solle v Butcher [1950] 1 KB 671 is an English contract law case, concerning the right to have a contract declared voidable in equity. Denning LJ reaffirmed a class of "equitable mistakes" in his judgment, which enabled a claimant to avoid a contract. Denning LJ said,
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