It is best known for Denning LJ's "red hand rule" comment, where he said, I quite agree that the more unreasonable a clause is, the greater the notice which must be given of it.

Bradshaw counterclaimed for damages for breach of an implied term of a contract of bailment to take reasonable care.

Note that his reference to the concept of a fundamental breach precluding an exclusion of liability was rejected by the House of Lords some years later in Photo Production Ltd v Securicor Transport Ltd [1980] AC 827.

If the clause went to those lengths, it would be very unreasonable and might for that reason be invalid on the lines which Baron Bramwell indicated in Parker v. South Eastern Railway Company (1877) 2 C.P.D.

For instance, if a carrier by land agrees to collect goods and deliver them forthwith, and in breach of that contract he leaves them unattended for an hour instead of carrying them to their destination, with the result that they are stolen, he is disentitled from relying on the exempting clause.

The essence of the contract by a warehouseman is that he will store the goods in the contractual place and deliver them on demand to the bailor or his order.

But if he should happen to damage them by some momentary piece of inadvertence, then he is able to rely on the exempting clause: because negligence by itself, without more, is not a breach which goes to the root of the contract (see Swan, Hunter, and Wigham Richardson, Ltd. v. France Fenwick Tyne and Wear Company, Ltd. [1953] 2 Lloyd's Rep. 82, at p. 88), any more than non-payment by itself is such a breach: see Mersey Steel and Iron Company, Ltd. v. Naylor, Benzon & Co. (1884) 9 App.

If a warehouseman were to handle the goods so roughly as to warrant the inference that he was reckless and indifferent to their safety, he would, I think, be guilty of a breach going to the root of the contract and could not rely on the exempting clause.

But, where the only charge made in the pleadings—or the only reasonable inference on the facts—is that the damage was due to negligence and nothing more, then the bailee can rely on the exempting clause without more ado.

Mr. Sofer urged us to hold that the warehousemen did not do what was reasonably sufficient to give notice of the conditions within Parker v South Eastern Railway Company.

The clause in this case, however, in my judgment, does not call for such exceptional treatment, especially when it is construed, as it should be, subject to the proviso that it only applies when the warehouseman is carrying out his contract and not when he is deviating from it or breaking it in a radical respect.

I think, therefore, that the counterclaim was properly dismissed, and this appeal also should be dismissed.Denning's "red hand" phrasing—and the idea that particularly onerous clauses (including but not limited to exclusion clauses) need sufficient notice if not incorporated by signature (or other means) has been widely referred to in a number of significant English cases subsequently including Thornton v Shoe Lane Parking Ltd, and Interfoto Picture Library Ltd v Stiletto Visual Programmes Ltd.[1] The Court of Appeal questioned the wide applicability of it in the case of AEG (UK) Ltd v Logic Resource Ltd[2] (in part as the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 provided a statutory relief from unfair terms), but it was cited with approval in Lacey's Footwear v Bowler International.