IMPLIED INDEMNITY

Adamson v Jarvis, (1827) 4 Bingham 66

The plaintiff was an auctioneer, and the defendant had directed him as such auctioneer to sell
certain cattle. The plaintiff did thereupon sell them, and it turned out that they did not belong to
the defendant, but to another person. The owner having made the plaintiff responsible, the
plaintiff sued the defendant in case for an indemnity. The Court there held that there was
evidence on these facts from which the jury might say that the plaintiff, having acted on the
request of the defendant, was entitled to assume that if what he did turned out to be wrongful as
against a third party, he would be indemnified by the defendant. In this case the plaintiff was the
defendant's agent.
It has been stated at the bar that this case is to be governed by the principles that regulate all
laws of principal and agent:Agreed: every man who employs another to do an act which the
employer appears to have a right to authorise him to do undertakes to indemnify him for all such
acts as would be lawful if the employer had the authority he pretends to have.
But here is a contract: the Plaintiff is hired by Defendant to sell, which implies a warranty to
indemnify against all the consequences that follow the sale.

Dugdale v Lovering, (1874-75) L.R. 10 C.P. 196

The plaintiffs were in possession of certain trucks, which were claimed by the defendant, and
also by the proprietors of the K. P. Colliery. A correspondence took place between the plaintiffs
and the defendant, in which the plaintiffs asked for an indemnity if they should deliver up the
trucks to the defendant. The defendant, without giving any answer as to the indemnity, wrote
requiring the plaintiffs to send the trucks back to him, which they thereupon did. The K. P.
Colliery proprietors then brought an action against the plaintiffs for conversion of the trucks, and
their claim proving well founded, the plaintiffs were obliged to pay a sum of money, in
settlement of the action, which they sought to recover from the defendant upon a contract of
indemnity:
Held, following the doctrine laid down in Betts v. Gibbins (2 Ad. & E. 57) and Toplis v. Grane (5
Bing. N. C. 636), that there was, under the circumstances of the case, evidence of an implied
promise to indemnify.
The principle upon which in such cases a contract of indemnity is implied is not confined to
cases of principal and agent, or employer and employed.
Tilak Ram v Surat Singh, AIR 1938 All 297
Part of certain property which was subject to three mortgages was transferred to the buyer, with a
direction from the seller to pay off the mortgagees.

No money was paid by the vendees. The plaintiffs thereafter brought the present
suit to recover damages caused by the default of the defendants vendees in
payment of the money left with them' to the mortgagees.
Held- a contract of indemnity was implied in such a contract of sale.
The vendees in the cases before us covenanted with the vendors not only to pay the
purchase money in a particular manner but to relieve the vendors from the liability
of the mortgages, and in that sense there was a contract to indemnify.

Secretary of State v Bank of India Ltd, AIR1938PC191

It was heldThe question is whether the appellant is debarred from relying on an indemnity implied under the
common law of India, which, in this respect, is identical with that of England. The statement of
the principle under which such an indemnity is implied is stated by Lord Halsbury L.C. in
Sheffield. Corporation v. Barclay [1905] A.C. 392 to be correctly expressed in a quotation from
counsel's argument in Dugdale v. Lovering (1875) L. R. 10 C. P. 196, which runs as follows (p.
397) :It is a general principle of law when an act is done by one person at the request of another
which act is not in itself manifestly tortious to the knowledge of the person doing it, and such
act turns out to be injurious to the rights of a third party, the person doing it is entitled to an
indemnity from him who requested that it should be done.