Ownership and Vesting of Materials - Building Contract - page 184

Pritchett & Gold and Electrical Power Storage Co v. Currie
COURT OF APPEAL
[1916] 2 Ch 515
Currie contracted with the second defendant for the supply of an electrical installation,
which included a storage battery. The second defendant entered into a sub-contract
with the plaintiffs for the supply and erection of the battery. The battery was delivered,
and shortly afterwards the second defendant became insolvent. The plaintiffs claimed
the price of the battery from Currie.
Held: The claim must fail.
Note: Although at first sight the sub-contract appears to be one for 'work and materials'
it was in effect a contract for the sale of goods.
PICKFORD LJ: The plaintiffs sued the defendant, Mrs Currie, for the value of materials which
they had supplied to the defendant company for the purpose of their being erected by the
defendant company on Mrs Currie's premises as an electric battery as part of a much larger
contract for the whole electrical installation, amounting to nearly £1,850. The master made
an order that without prejudice to any questions between the plaintiffs and the defendant
company Mrs Currie should lodge in court a certain sum of money, a portion of the balance
of the contract price alleged to be payable by her to the defendant company, and it was ordered
that on such lodgment all proceedings should be stayed against Mrs Currie and that the
plaintiffs should within fourteen days deliver a statement of their claim to the defendant
company who were within fourteen days thereafter to deliver their defence and be at liberty
therein to set up any counter-claim. The defendant company had been added on the applica-
tion of Mrs Currie as defendants. The result of that was that a certain sum of money payable
by Mrs Currie in respect of the main contract was paid into court, and the plaintiffs were to
deliver a claim by which they were to establish their right to that sum of money as against the
defendant company . . .
To establish that right, counsel for the plaintiffs, concedes, quite rightly, that he must estab-
lish that he has a lien upon or a right to follow that particular sum. He also concedes that,
unless such a right is given to him by the authority of Bellamy v. Davey (1891), he cannot
make out such a right because it is the assertion by a sub-contractor of a lien on the whole of
the money payable by the principal debtor to the head contractor under the contract. He
admits that, unless that is given to him by the authority of that case, it is contrary to the general
rules of law. I do not think that it is in the least necessary for me to consider whether Bellamy
v. Davey is right or is wrong. I think that it is enough to say that, assuming that the decision
in that case was absolutely right, it is no authority for the proposal for which the plaintiffs
contend in the present case. That was a case in which the contractor and the sub-contractor
were concerned only with the article that was supplied by the sub-contractor. No doubt the
contractor had charged a larger price to the building owner than the sub-contractor charged
to him. But that and that only was the subject of the contract. It may be - I do not say whether
it is or is not so - that in that case the sub-contractor may have a lien upon the amount payable
to the contractor for the amount due to him, and that only the surplus went to the contractor,
but it seems to me that that does not in any way establish that where there is a sum of money
payable to a contractor, not in respect of one article only, but in respect of the whole contract