## Facts

- A goldsmith sold Lopus a stone for £100 after affirming it was a bezoar stone.
- Bezoar stones were valued for supposed medicinal or protective properties, and the price reflected that belief.
- The stone was not an efficacious bezoar as Lopus expected.
- Lopus’s pleading alleged only that the seller “affirmed” the stone was a bezoar; it did not allege an express warranty given at the sale.
- The pleadings did not adequately allege actionable deceit; the seller’s knowledge of falsity was treated as immaterial on the case as framed.
- Lopus obtained judgment in the King’s Bench; the defendant sought review in the Exchequer Chamber.

## Issues

1. Whether a seller’s bare affirmation that goods are of a particular kind or quality, without an express warranty, supports an action when the affirmation is false.
2. Whether selling the stone as a bezoar is actionable deceit absent a properly pleaded allegation of fraud or an express warranty.

## Decision

- The Exchequer Chamber reversed the King’s Bench judgment for the buyer.
- The court held that a bare affirmation that the stone was a bezoar, without warranting it to be so, provided no cause of action.
- The court indicated that a warranty must be made contemporaneously with the sale and pleaded as such to support contractual liability.
- On the pleadings, the seller’s knowledge that the stone was not a bezoar was not treated as sufficient to establish liability without a properly pleaded deceit claim.
- A dissenting view (Anderson, J.) reasoned that representing a non-bezoar as a bezoar could itself constitute sufficient deceit.

## Legal Principles

- A seller’s mere affirmation about the nature or quality of goods, without an express warranty, is not actionable if the statement proves false.
- To recover, the buyer must plead and prove either:
  - an express warranty made at the time of sale, or
  - actionable deceit (fraud) pleaded in a legally sufficient manner.
- The decision reflects caveat emptor: absent warranty or fraud, the buyer bears the risk that goods are not as represented.

## Conclusion

The Exchequer Chamber held that liability did not arise from the seller’s un-warranted description of the stone as a bezoar and reversed the buyer’s judgment because the claim failed to allege an express warranty or adequately pleaded deceit.


Chandelor v. Lopus, 79 Eng. Rep. 3 (Exch. Ch. 1603)