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8
Special Reports Presented Daring 1904.
Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green.
To the Public Health Committee.
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,—
Be:—Warranty Defence, Milk Cases.
Sale of Food and Drugs Acts, 1875 to 1899.
Agreeably with your instructions that in consequence of the
numerous cases in which recent prosecutions taken in connection
with the sale of milk have either resulted in the summonses being
dismissed or withdrawn, the whole question should be considered,
I respectfully beg to report for your assistance as follows:—
What is now known as the "Warranty Defence" is a matter
of quite recent growth, undoubtedly arising out of the unsatisfactory
and defective condition of the law relating to the Sale of Food and
Drugs generally, and of Milk especially.
Under Section 20 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1875, in
any prosecution, if the defendant proves that he had purchased the
article in question as the same in nature, substance and quality
as that demanded of him by the prosecutor, and with a written
warranty to that effect, and that he had no reason to believe at the
time when he sold it that the article was otherwise, and that he had
sold it in the same state as when he purchased it, the prosecution
fails.
Section 20 of the Act, 1899, does not materially vary the
above, except to require that the person who intends to rely on
this defence shall give seven days' notice in writing, and shall
send a copy of the warranty or invoice he intends to rely upon to
the prosecutor.