THE RULE IN BOLTON V. LAMBERT

Abstract

In this article the author discusses the 1889 English Court of Appeal case of Bolton Partners v. Lambert a case which recognizes the fiction in agency law that subsequent ratification is equivalent to prior authority. The author examines the manner in which the courts of England and Canada have dealt with the problem of the right to revoke before ratification in the few reported cases after the Bolton case. After outlining the cases that followed and applied the Bolton case, as well as those that distinguished the case, the author argues that the question of reasonable time for ratification was surprisingly not mentioned in the original Bolton case. In the end the author concludes that the Bolton case demonstrated a conflict between the mystical authority of legal fictions and the recognition of business expediency.