Hire - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition hire

Definition :

Hire [locatio, conductio, Lat.], a bailment for a reward or compensation. It is divisible into four sorts:-(1) The hiring of a thing for use (locatio rei). (2) The hiring of work and labour (locatio operis faciendi). (3) The hiring of care and services to be performed or bestowed on the thing delivered (locatio custodi'). (4) The hiring of the carriage of goods (locatio operis mercium vehendarum) from one place to another. The three last are but sub-divisions of the general head of hire of labour and services.

The rights, duties, and obligations of the parties resulting from the contract of bailment for hire may be thus stated:-

(I.) Hire of things. The letting to hire implies an obligation to deliver the thing to the hirer; to refrain from every obstruction to the use of it by the hirer during the period of the bailment; to do no act that shall deprive the hirer of the thing; to warrant the title and right of possession to the hirer, in order to enable him to use the thing, or to perform the service; to keep the thing in suitable order and repair for the purposes of the bailment; and, finally, to warrant the thing free from any fault inconsistent with the proper use or enjoyment of it. It is the duty of the person letting to hire, according to the Roman Law, to disclose the faults of the thing hired, and practice no artful concealment, to charge only a reasonable price therefore, and to indemnity the hirer for all expenses which are properly payable by the person letting. The rights of the hirer are that he acquires that right of possession only of the thing for the particular period or purpose stipulated (but he acquires no property in it); and that he also acquires the exclusive right to the use of the thing during the time of the bailment. His duties are to put the thing to no other use than that for which it is hired; to use it well; to take care of it; to restore it at the time appointed; to pay the price or hire; and, in general, to observe whatever is prescribed by contract, or by law, or by custom. The contract may be dissolved or extinguished in respect to future liabilities in various ways: (1) by the mere efflux of time or the accomplishment of the object for which the thing is hired; (2) by the loss or destruction of the thing by any inevitable casualty; (3) by a voluntary dissolu-tion of the contract by the parties; and (4) by operation of law, as where the hirer becomes proprietor by purchase or otherwise of the thing hired. How far those principles which are derived altogether from the Roman and foreign laws are to be deemed satisfactorily established in our jurisprudence is a matter for consideration, since the Common Law does not furnish any direct recognition of them. But it may be safely affirmed that they are so consonant with general justice, and with the nature of the contract, that, in the absence of any controlling authority, they may be used as fit guides to assist our general reasoning.

(II.) Hire of labour and services, divisible into two branches: (a) Locatio operis faciendi, and (b) locatio operis mercium vehendarum, mentioned as the 2nd and 4th divisions of the four sorts of hiring above set forth.

(a) The locatio operis faciendi may be subdivided into two kinds: (a) The hire of labour and services, or locatio operis faciendi, strictly so called: such are the hire of tailors to make clothes, of jewelers to set gems, and of watchmakers to repair watches; (b) locatio custodi' (the third division first above mentioned), or the receiving of goods on deposit for a reward for the custody thereof, which is properly the hire of care and attention about the goods, as by warehousemen, wharfingers, etc.

(a) In contracts for work it is of the essence of the contract: (1) That there should be work to be done; (2) that it should be done for a price, or reward; (3) that there should be a lawful contract between parties capable and intending to contract. The obligations and duties on the part of the employer, as deduced in the foreign law, are principally these: (1) To pay the price of compensation; (2) to pay for all proper new and accessorial materials; (3) to do everything on his part to enable the workman to execute his engagement; (3) to do everything on his part to enable the workman to execute his engagement; (4) to accept the thing when it is finished. If, before the work is finished, the thing perishes by internal defect, by inevitable accident, or by irresistible force, without any default of the workman, then (1) if the work is independent of any materials or property of the employer, the manufacturer has the risk, and the unfinished work is lost to him; (2) if he is employed in working up the material, or adding his labour to the property of the employer, the risk is with the owner of the thing with which the labour is incorporated; (3) if the work has been performed in such a way as to afford a defence to the employer against a demand for the price, if the accident had not happened (as if it were defectively or improperly done), the same defence will be equally available to him after the loss. The obligations or duties on the part of the workman or undertaker are thus summed up in the foreign law: To do the work; to do it at the time agreed on; to do it well; to employ the materials furnished by the employer in a proper manner; and, lastly, to exercise a proper degree of care and diligence about the work.

The hiring of care and attention. To this class belong a gisters of cattle, warehousemen, forwarding merchants, and wharfingers. They are bound to use ordinary diligence, and of course are responsible for losses by ordinary negligence.

The locatio operis mercium vehendarum, or the carriage of goods for hire. In respect to contracts of this sort entered into by private persons, who do not exercise the business of common carriers, there does not seem to be any material distinction varying the rights, obligations, and duties of the parties from those of other bailees for hire. Every such private person is bound to ordinary diligence, and to a reasonable exercise of skill; and of course he is not responsible for any losses not occasioned by the ordinary negligence of himself or of his servants. The exceptions to this general rule are post-masters, innkeepers, and common carriers, who are under peculiar regulations consonant with public policy; see those titles respectively, Story on Bailment's, c. vi. Consult Smith's Leading Cases, sub tit, Coggs v. Bernard; Wyatt Paine on Bailment's; Addison or Chitty on Contracts.

It means the sum payable periodically by the hirer under a hire-purchase agreement. [Hire-Purchase Act, 1972 (2 of 1972), s. 2 (b)]