Trespass to Goods in UK Law

In the passage at page 332 Lord Roskill, as it seems to me, impliedly envisages that mere label switching could be an appropriation and that this is so is confirmed by the answer to the certified question which specifically uses the words "either by that act alone". What then is it which would make label switching alone something which adversely affects or usurps the right of the owner?

Moreover, on general principles, it would in my judgment be a plain interference with or usurpation of an owner's rights by the customer if he were to remove a label which the owner had placed on goods or put another label on. It would be a trespass to goods and it would be usurping the owner's rights, for only he would have any right to do such an act and no one could contend that there was any implied consent or authority to a customer to do any such thing.

The case of the customer who simply removes goods from the shelves is of course different because the basis on which a supermarket is run is that customers certainly have the consent of the owner to take goods from the shelves and take them to the checkout point there to pay the proper price for them. Suppose, however, that there were no such consent—in, for example, a shop where goods on display were to be taken from the shelves only by the attendant.

In such a case he court does no come to any decision as to the legality or illegality, or the rightness or wrongness, of the act complained of: the decision is that because it was an act of State the court has no jurisdiction to entertain a claim in respect of it. This is a very unusual situation and strong evidence is required to prove that it exists in a particular case.

Justices would, of course, be acting "without jurisdiction or in excess of jurisdiction" within the meaning of section 15 if, in the course of hearing a case within their jurisdiction they were guilty of some gross and obvious irregularity of procedure, as for example if one justice absented himself for part of the hearing and relied on another to tell him what had happened during his absence, or of the rules of natural justice, as for example if the justices refused to allow the defendant to give evidence.

These facts show that the comparison of a hard disk with a filing cabinet is inexact and may be misleading. For some purposes no doubt the files on a hard disk may be regarded as separate documents. But a hard disk cannot be regarded as simply a container of the files visible to the computer's operating system.

Nothing in this judgment is intended to cast doubt upon the Family Division's practice to admit all relevant evidence in the search for truth or to impose sanctions where there has been improper conduct.