Court case[1896] 2 QB 44

The water company owned the land under Minster Pool at Lichfield and employed Sharman, with other workmen, to clean out the pool. In the mud at the bottom Sharman found two gold rings. The company demanded them; he refused and handed them to the police, who, failing to find the owner, returned them to him. The company sued in detinue. The county court judge, applying Bridges v. Hawkesworth, found for Sharman and the company appealed.

Lord Russell CJ reversed the county court. Adopting the principle stated by Pollock and Wright in their Essay on Possession in the Common Law, he held that where a person has possession of a house or land with a manifest intention to exercise control over it and the things which may be upon or in it, then, if something is found on that land by a stranger or a servant, the presumption is that the possession of that thing is in the owner of the land. The rings were under the surface, part of the land for this purpose; the company had possession of the land and therefore of the rings, though it did not know of them. Sharman, moreover, was employed to clean out the pool and found the rings in the course of that work, so he took them on behalf of his employer. Bridges v. Hawkesworth was distinguished because there the notes lay in a public place open to all.