Facts
The plaintiffs (James) advertised a lot of land for sale in the following terms:
All that well-accustomed inn, with the brewhouse, outbuildings, and premises known as The Ship, together with the messuage, saddler's shop, and premises adjoining thereto, situate at Newerne, in the same parish, No. 454 and 455 on the said tithe map, and containing by admeasurement twenty perches, more or less, now in the occupation of Mrs. Knowles and Mr. S. Merrick.
This lot is situate close to the Lydney Town station, on the Severn and Wye Railway, and abuts on other premises of the vendors, on the canal, and on lands now or late of the Rev. W. H. Bathurst.
The defendant (Tamplin) signed a contract to purchase the lot for £750.
A defendant is a person accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or a person against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case.
The defendant did not perform the contract of sale. He deposed to the primary judge (Baggallay LJ) that he expected that two pieces of garden formed part of the lot, when they were in fact held by a railway company and not the vendor. The primary judge found that at the auction for the lot, plans were made available that showed that the gardens were not part of the lot, but that the defendant did not inspect the plans.
Sir Richard Baggallay PC, was a British Conservative politician and judge of the Court of Appeal.
The primary judge made a decree for specific performance to compel the defendant's purchase of the land. The defendant appealed to the Court of Appeal.
Judgment
The three presiding judges of the Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed the appeal, upholding the decree for specific performance. The judges were Sir William Milbourne James (James LJ), Viscount Esher (Brett LJ) and Sir Henry Cotton (Cotton LJ).
Sir William Milbourne James was a Welsh judge.
William Baliol Brett, 1st Viscount Esher, PC, known as Sir William Brett between 1868 and 1883, was a British lawyer, judge, and Conservative politician. He was briefly Solicitor-General under Benjamin Disraeli and then served as a justice of the Court of Common Pleas between 1868 and 1876, as a Lord Justice of Appeal between 1876 and 1883 and as Master of the Rolls. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Esher in 1885 and further honoured when he was made Viscount Esher on his retirement in 1897.
Sir Henry Cotton was a British judge. He was a Lord Justice of Appeal from 1877, when he was made a Privy Counsellor, until his retirement in 1890.
James LJ held that the defence to specific performance for mistake could not generally be sustained where the vendor did nothing to mislead the purchaser and the mistake arose because of the purchaser's lack of reasonable care (here, the failure to inspect the plans). However, James LJ left it open for specific performance to be excused where:
...a hardship amounting to injustice would have been inflicted upon [the purchaser] by holding him to his bargain, and it was unreasonable to hold him to it.
James LJ found that the defendant's mistaken purchase of the lot did not fall within this category of unjust hardship. James LJ agreed with Cotton LJ (in obiter) that where specific performance is not awarded because of a mistake, the court should proceed to award damages to the plaintiff in lieu of specific performance.
Brett LJ agreed to uphold the decree for specific performance, suggesting that a purchaser could not be relieved from specific performance for a mistake that was not of vital importance to the contract and arose from the purchaser's own negligence.
Cotton LJ also agreed to uphold the decree for specific performance, holding that a purchaser could not escape specific performance for a mistake that "he had no right to make". Cotton LJ argued (in obiter) (James LJ agreeing) that where specific performance is not awarded because of a mistake, the court should proceed to award damages to the plaintiff in lieu of specific performance.
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