## Facts

- Hart (defendant) ran a pawnbroking business and employed a servant to transact with customers as part of the shop’s ordinary operations.
- Jones (plaintiff) dealt with Hart’s servant in the course of the pawnbroking business.
- The servant received and held Jones’s goods as part of his employment and also took money from Jones in connection with the goods.
- When Jones later sought the goods, the servant told Jones that he had lost them.
- Jones brought an action of trover against Hart (the master), seeking the value of the goods, rather than suing only the servant.

## Issues

1. Can a customer maintain an action of trover against a pawnbroker for the loss of pledged goods when the pawnbroker’s servant, acting in the business and by the master’s authority, received the goods and later said he had lost them?

## Decision

- Yes. Trover lay against the master (Hart) for the servant’s handling of the goods in the course of the employment.
- The court treated the servant’s acts, done by the master’s authority in the business, as acts of the master.
- Judgment was for the plaintiff, making Hart answerable for the value of the goods.

## Legal Principles

- A master is liable for torts committed by a servant when the servant acts by the master’s authority and within the servant’s employment.
- When a servant is placed in a role to receive customers’ goods as part of the employer’s trade, the employer bears responsibility to the customer if the servant wrongfully deprives the customer of the goods (including by a loss treated as a conversion in trover).
- The master’s liability does not depend on proof that the master personally took, misdelivered, or lost the goods; it is enough that the servant acted in the authorized business on the master’s behalf.

## Conclusion

In *Jones v. Hart*, the King’s Bench allowed a trover action against a pawnbroker whose servant, acting in the pawnbroking business and with the master’s authority, received a customer’s goods and later said he had lost them, holding the master responsible for the servant’s conduct in that course of employment.


Jones v. Hart, Holt K.B. 642, 90 Eng. Rep. 1255 (1698)