Legal Case Summary
Mendelssohn v Normand Ltd [1970] 1 QB 177
The garage could not rely on its printed exclusion to defeat the attendant’s specific promise to lock the car and protect its contents.
Facts
Mr Mendelssohn left a friend’s car at the Cumberland Garage while going to lunch. A suitcase containing jewellery and other valuables was on the back seat beneath a rug. As he was about to lock the car, an attendant told him that the garage’s rules did not allow this. Mendelssohn explained that the luggage was valuable and handed over the keys after the attendant agreed to lock the car once it had been moved.
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When Mendelssohn returned about an hour later, the car had been moved but was unlocked, with the key in the ignition. He discovered later that day that the suitcase was missing. The trial judge found that it had been stolen while the car was in the garage by one of the attendants, probably the employee who had received it. Mendelssohn claimed £200 from Normand Ltd, which operated the garage.
The notice, the ticket and the promise
The company relied on two sets of exclusion terms. One appeared on a reception-desk notice, which a driver would encounter when returning to pay rather than when bringing the car in. The other appeared on the parking ticket. The question was therefore wider than whether the reception notice had been incorporated: the effect of the ticket conditions and the attendant’s oral assurance also mattered.
The Court of Appeal’s reasoning
Lord Denning MR distinguished the notice from the ticket. The garage had not established that Mendelssohn knew of or agreed to the reception notice. His previous visits did not, by themselves, make that notice part of the contract.
The ticket was treated differently. Mendelssohn had used the garage many times and repeatedly accepted tickets carrying the same conditions. Their incorporation was accepted in the case, despite his not reading them. The ticket included a broadly expressed exclusion for loss or damage and a requirement that variations be made in writing by the authorised manager.
The trial judge had relied on ambiguity in the exclusion’s wording. Lord Denning did not accept that this alone disposed of the company’s defence: even a narrower reading could cover loss of the contents. The specific oral promise was therefore central.
The attendant had agreed to lock the car after moving it. Mendelssohn handed over the keys on that basis. The garage could not rely on inconsistent printed wording to defeat the assurance which induced him to proceed with the arrangement. The promise took priority over the conflicting exclusion.
Decision and significance
The garage remained liable for the loss. The case illustrates two distinct questions: whether an exclusion became part of the contract, and whether the business could rely on it consistently with a specific assurance given to the customer. Failure to incorporate the reception notice did not mean that every printed condition was excluded. Equally, the ticket’s incorporation did not resolve the effect of the promise to lock the car.
Judgment: Mendelssohn v Normand Ltd, Court of Appeal, 26 February 1969; reported at [1970] 1 QB 177.
