nemo.dat.quod.non.habet

Yes, Nemo dat Quod Non Habet is one of the most hard to pronounce at some point, but one of the most important rule in the Sale of Goods Act. In fact, it is very applicable in a lot of way. But before that, let us define in the Law scope of what Nemo Dat Quod Non Habet means:

Nemo dat quod non habet, literally meaning "no one [can] give what he does not have" is a legal rule, sometimes called the nemo dat rule, that states that the purchase of a possession from someone who has no ownership right to it also denies the purchaser any ownership title. This rule usually stays valid even if the purchaser does not know that the seller has no right to claim ownership of the object of the transaction (a bona fide purchaser); however it is often difficult for courts to make judgements as in many cases there is more than one innocent party. As a result of this there are numerous exceptions to the general rule which aim to give a degree of protection to bona fide purchasers as well as original owners (from Wikipedia.org)

To simplify it to Business Law context, "no one can give a better title than (from) what he has himself". As quoted in Section 27 of SOGA 1957, and this actually entails that the individual who purchased the item, whether is stolen or not, as with no recognition by the party who is considered uninformed or innocent for this case, the buyer are not entitled for the ownership of this.

With that some people may think, hey, I'm just a buyer who don't even know the origin of the products, and I'm the victim. How bout the stupid guy who sold me this thing, why doesn't he got any problem with that. Thus, we bring the story that our lecturer share during the class.

This is Mamat and he is happy to have recently bought a racing car from Jack. But later on found out that the car did not belong to Jack, but instead belonged to Paul. Jack had sold it to him without Paul's knowledge, authority or approval?
and in this scenario, the rule of Nemo Dat Quod Non Habet applied and Mamat had to returned the car to Paul.

But seriously, this case had brought numerous issues, especially for the judge, as some of the parties are innocent, lack of information given and etc. And we shall proceed with the next post of with the exceptions of the rules.