Parker v South Eastern Railway Co
Terms on a ticket are incorporated if reasonable steps were taken to bring them to the customer's notice.
Facts
Mr Parker left a bag in the cloakroom at Charing Cross station and paid 2d. He received a paper ticket with a number and a date on the front, along with the words see back. On the back were conditions, including one stating that the railway company would not be responsible for any package worth more than £10. The bag was lost, and Mr Parker claimed its value of £24 10s. He said he had seen the writing on the ticket but had not read it and did not know it contained conditions. The jury found for Mr Parker on the basis that he had not read the conditions and was not bound to do so.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal ordered a new trial, holding that the jury had been asked the wrong question. The question was not whether Mr Parker had read the conditions, but whether the railway company had done what was reasonably sufficient to give him notice of them. If a person receiving a ticket knows that it contains conditions, he is bound by them. If he does not know, he is still bound if the company did what was reasonably sufficient to give notice of the conditions. The case established the reasonable notice test for incorporating terms in unsigned documents.
Related cases on exclusion clauses and unfair terms
- Canada Steamship Lines Ltd v The King [1952] AC 192
- Chapelton v Barry Urban District Council [1940] 1 KB 532
- Curtis v Chemical Cleaning and Dyeing Co [1951] 1 KB 805
- Director General of Fair Trading v First National Bank plc [2001] UKHL 52, [2002] 1 AC 481
- George Mitchell (Chesterhall) Ltd v Finney Lock Seeds Ltd [1983] 2 AC 803
- Goodlife Foods Ltd v Hall Fire Protection Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 1371
- Hollier v Rambler Motors (AMC) Ltd [1972] 2 QB 71
- Hopcraft v Close Brothers Ltd [2025] UKSC 33
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