Ipswich Plant’s manager had been unaware of previous dealings, but hire and transport charges were agreed by phone, and British Crane delivered.
Lord Denning's ruling is known for its typically laconic opening sentence: In June 1970, a big earth-moving machine got stuck in the mud.
Who is to pay the cost?Denning held the clause was incorporated, so Ipswich Plant had to reimburse for the recovery expenses.
In Hollier v Rambler Motors [1972] 2 QB, page 76, Lord Justice Salmon said he knew of no case "in which it has been decided or even argued that a term could be implied into an oral contract on the strength of a course of dealing (if it can be so called) which consisted at the most of three or four transactions over a period of five years".
The conditions on the plaintiffs' form were in rather different words, but nevertheless to much the same effect... [Lord Denning MR quoted from exchanges at trial]
I would not put it so much on the course of dealing, but rather on the common understanding which is to be derived from the conduct of the parties, namely, that the hiring was to be on the terms of the plaintiffs' usual conditions.Megaw and Sachs LJJ concurred.