Oscar Chess Ltd v Williams [1957] 1 WLR 370

FACTS: The plaintiff car dealers, Oscar Chess Ltd, agreed on a trade-in of the defendant's old car as part of the arrangement when he purchased another car from them. The registration book of the car traded in gave its date as 1948. The defendant, Williams, confirmed this date in good faith. Some months later, it was discovered that the date should have been 1939. The car was thus worth much less than the amount allowed for it in the trade-in arrangement. HELD by a majority of the Court of Appeal: The age of the car was not a term of the contract and therefore there was no breach of contract by the defendant. Here, it was clear that the skill and expertise lay in the hands of the plaintiff, the car dealers, and not in the hands of Williams who was making the statement. Consequently, the statement remained as a representation without contractual force. In contrast, in Dick Bentley Productions v Harold Smith (Motors) the skill and expertise was in the hands of the statement maker and thus the statement amounted to a term of the contract, the breach of which entitled the plaintiff to damages.