This case illustrates the common-sense rationale behind withernam: a visiting merchant could incur debts and, after he left town, it would be difficult to force him to repay. One resort was to seize the goods of another visiting merchant from the same town, as compensation for the debt; this obliged the innocent merchant to seek retribution from his guilty fellow townsmen, after returning home. The intent was presumably partly to put the onus on a community to bring its own members to justice, and partly to discourage deliberate defaulting on debts by ensuring that flight was no escape from liability. Although a community might show some favouritism towards its own members against the accusations of outsiders, it also recognized that the crimes of individual members might adversely reflect on the reputations of all its members.

The desire to have this decision reviewed by the king's justices was a wise one, for the procedure of withernam was out of favour with the king, and was about to be limited by the Statute of Westminster (1275).