Banks v Whetson (1596)

Abstract

This chapter considers the pre-modern common law rules on the identification of money in mixtures. It takes the decision of the Court of King’s Bench in Banks v Whetson (1596) as a starting point for considering the legal structures which tended to ensure the perfect fungibility of commodity monies in the late medieval and early modern periods. It then considers how these were applied in civil actions in detinue and in criminal appeals of theft for the recovery of money. It shows how these rules were relevant to delimiting the differences between the forms of legal remedy available to plaintiffs, and how their relationship to common forms of monetary transaction. These rules were the foundation of the modern rules for tracing money in mixtures.

Keywords: Property law, Legal history, Monetary law, Tracing

JEL Classification: K1, K11, K19