Buttrose J:

The facts and arguments appear sufficiently from the judgment.

In this action the plaintiff's claim against the defendants was for the return of a Ford motor car or $5,000 its value and damages for its detention and conversion and also for trespass to it.

The facts were that the plaintiff's husband wanted a loan to enable him to go to Ceylon. He approached the defendants, a finance company, who agreed to lend the sum of $3,000. As the security for the loan was to be the plaintiff's Ford motor car, it was agreed that the loan would be made to her. The plaintiff was at the time buying the car under a hire purchase agreement with Motor Traders Finance Co. Ltd, and there was an amount of $1,199 still to be paid under it.

The defendant company drew a cheque for $3,000 in favour of the plaintiff which she endorsed and returned to the defendants who cashed it out of their own funds. Out of this sum the defendant company was instructed to retain $1,199 and pay it to Motor Traders Finance Co. Ltd. which they subsequently did and $1,581 was handed in the plaintiff's presence to her husband in cash. The defendant company retained $210 as commission on the deal and $10 for documents. It was admitted by the defendants at the trial that they lent the $3,000 to the plaintiff on the security of her car.

Now this transaction was carried out by means of certain documents including a hire purchase proposal form and a hire purchase agreement which would have been used had this been one of the ordinary transactions whereby finance companies finance the purchase of cars in the same way as Motor Traders Finance Co. Ltd. financed the plaintiff's purchase of the Ford motor car. The difference between that transaction and this is that the defendants here were purporting to buy the car not from a dealer but from the plaintiff herself.

The evidence of Lim Soon Guan who was the business manager of the defendants at the material time was that he informed the plaintiff and her husband that the only way the loan could be put through was for the plaintiff to sell the car to them and that they agreed to this course. The evidence of the plaintiff and her husband which I accept was that no mention of having to sell the car to the defendants was ever made to them. It is true that the plaintiff signed the hire purchase proposal form and the hire purchase agreement and a receipt for $4,500 purporting to be the full purchase price for the Ford motor car paid to her by the defendant company.

I am quite satisfied on the evidence and find as a fact that she signed those documents in blank with no particulars filled in, on the representation made to her by the defendants that they were a mere formality but had to be executed if the loan was to go through. I am also satisfied that these documents were signed by her on 6 August 1957 when the loan was made and that the particulars were typed in later by the defendants and the documents dated 10 August 1957. I am fortified in my findings of fact by the letter dated 20 August 1957 from the plaintiff to the defendants which reads as follows:

Mrs. NG Nugawela c/o

12, Rambai Road,

Singapore, 15

20 August 1957.

REGISTERED POST

Messrs. Soon Teck Finance Co.,

173A, South Bridge Road,

Singapore.

Gentlemen,

I have received a Hire Purchase Agreement, a receipt for $1,500, which I have not paid to you and I am rather bewildered by the contents of the agreement which I signed blank and received a sum of money which was calculated as follows i.e.

Amount which you lent me against the Car was agreed at $3,000. You deducted a sum of $210 as commission leaving a balance of $2,790 and again a sum of $10 for documents left a sum of $2,780. I signed on the reverse of a cheque which you drew in my favour for $3,000 and you gave a sum of money in CASH

of only $1,581 retaining a sum of $1,199 which amount was owing to Motor Traders Finance Co. Ltd., on the existing hire-purchase account and promised me that