Court : House of Lords
Lord Normand MY LORDS, The question in this appeal is whether the Respondent Association is a body of persons established for charitable purposes only. If so, it is agreed that the profits of a trade, namely the holding of annual athletic sports, carried on by them, will be exempt from income tax under Schedule D, by virtue of section 30 (1) (c) of the Finance Act, 1921, as amended by section 24 of the Finance Act, 1927. I will first summarize the facts found in the Case Stated by the Special Commissioners. Before 1938 there were various clubs connected with the City of Glasgow Police. In February, 1938, they were merged in the Respondent Association, which was established at that time in order to co-ordinate the various athletic and sporting activities of the members of the Police Force. Attention must be drawn to certain excerpts from the General Rules of the Association. Rule 2. Objects.—The objects of the Association shall be to encourage and promote all forms of athletic spo...
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Lord Normand MY LORDS, I have had the advantage of reading the Opinion about to be delivered by my noble and learned friend, Lord Morton of Henryton, and I agree with him that this appeal must be dismissed for the reasons given by him. He has quoted and commented upon certain observations made by me in St. Aubyn v. Attorney-General [1952] A.C., 15. I must confess that I there used language of a breadth which lends itself to misunderstanding and that I ought to have expressly qualified my words in the manner which my noble and learned friend indicates. Lord Morton of Henryton MY LORDS, My noble and learned friend, Lord Oaksey, has asked me to say that he concurs in the Opinion which I am about to deliver. Lord Morton of Henryton MY LORDS, The question which arises on this appeal is whether interest upon two Post Office Savings Bank accounts, one in the name of the Appellant's son Michael, and the other in the name of the Appellant's daughter Heather, and interest upon two holdings of 1,...
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Lord Porter MY LORDS, This Appeal is brought by Mrs. Seagull Gladys Stapley, the widow of Mr. John Sydney Stapley, against a decision of the Court of Appeal which held that her action failed. Before Sellers, J. she had succeeded in recovering 1,512 10s., being half the damages of 3,025 which that learned Judge found she had sustained from the death of her husband. Mr. Stapley was employed by the Respondents as a breaker in their gypsum mine, and part of his duty was to break up gypsum rock, which had been blasted by a previous shift of workers, in order that it might be removed by scraper haulage from the spot where it lay. The circumstances giving rise to her claim are not in dispute and can be shortly stated. At about 4.15 p.m. on the 21st day of August, 1950, John Sydney Stapley and one Dale, in the course of their employment by the Respondents, were underground in No. 9 Stope at the Respondents' Gypsum Mine in the 'County of Sussex. John Sydney Stapley was a breaker and Dale a bore...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Lord Porter MY LORDS, In this case the Appellant recovered a sum of 550 as damages for injuries which he alleged had been (the result of a failure on the part of the Respondents in breach of their statutory duty to maintain one of the gangways in their works in an efficient state. He relied also upon an allegation of Common Law negligence. Pilcher, J. rejected his claim based on a breach of statutory duty, but held the Respondents guilty of Common Law negligence. The Court of Appeal agreed with the judgment of the learned judge on the claim for breach of statutory duty, but were of opinion that there was no Common Law negligence upon the part of the Respondents. The relevant facts are short and undisputed. The Appellant was a Horizontal Milling Machine Operator employed by the Respondents in their works at Southall At those works they employ some 4,000 persons and the works themselves extend over an area of about 15 acres. On the 31st August, 1950, the Appellant was working on the nigh...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
LORD MORTON OF HENRYTON.—This appeal arises out of an action by the appellant against the respondents in the Court of Session, claiming reduction of a disposition of certain land by the appellant in favour of the respondents. The Lord Ordinary (Lord Mackintosh) decided in favour of the appellant and reduced the disposition, but the First Division of the Court of Session reversed his decision and dismissed the action. Hence this appeal. The events leading up to the action are as follows. Prior to 15th December 1948 the appellant owned two adjoining properties in the parish of Shotts and county of Lanark. One was a farm called Blairmuckhill in the occupation of Messrs Hugh Miller and Sons, as tenants. It was 197 acres in extent, and the rent was 120 a year. The other was a colliery, some 34 acres in extent, in the occupation of the National Coal Board, who paid a rent of 51, 12s. to the appellant. By probative missives dated 15th, 16th and 17th December 1948, and passing between Me...
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Lord Chancellor MY LORDS, This appeal raises questions of considerable importance and for that reason, though I have had the privilege of reading the Opinion which my noble and learned friend. Lord Morton of Henryton, is about to deliver and agree with it in its reasoning and conclusions. I think it desirable to make same observations upon the main argument of the Appellants. By way of preliminary explanation, it is only necessary to say that your Lordships are invited to hold that a Judge of the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice has an inherent jurisdiction in the execution of the trusts of a settlement to sanction on behalf of infant beneficiaries and unborn persons a rearrangement of the trusts of that settlement for no other purpose than to secure an adventitious benefit which may be and, in the present case, is, that estate duty, payable in a certain event as things now stand, will, in consequence of the rearrangement, not be payable in respect of the trust funds. Thi...
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Viscount Simonds MY LORDS, This appeal raises questions in regard to the application of the equitable doctrine of advancement which I had regarded as well settled long ago. The following facts form the background of the case. On the 20th July, 1949, one Philip Edward Shephard died leaving a substantial estate subject to the claims to which I presently refer. The Respondents. Joseph Osmond Cartwright and Hedley Spain Dunk and his son, the Appellant, Richard David Shephard, are the executors of his will which was made on the 4th December, 1946. In addition to Richard, who was born on the 2nd November, 1913, the deceased, as I will call him, had two other children, an elder son, the Respondent, Philip Edward Shephard, and a daughter, the Appellant, Winifred Maud Cartwright, who was born on the 25th October, 1906. In the year 1929 the deceased, who was then employed in an insurance brokerage business, engaged upon speculative building ventures in association with one Meyer, and for that pu...
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Viscount Simonds MY LORDS, These consolidated appeals raise once more a question, which has so often caused doubt and difficulty in the courts of this country, whether certain trusts are charitable in the sense which the law accords to that word. It need cause no surprise, though it may cause regret, that this should be so. For while no comprehensive definition of legal charity has been given either by the Legislature or in judicial utterance, there is no limit to the number and diversity of the ways in which man will seek to benefit his fellow-men. To determine whether the privileges, now considerable, which are accorded to charity in its legal sense, are to be granted or refused in a particular case, is often a matter of great nicety and I think that this House can perform no more useful function in this branch of the law than to discourage a further excess of refinement where already so many line distinctions have been made. In the present appeals the controversy is about the amount...
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Lord Oaksey MY LORDS, This is an appeal from the Court of Appeal affirming a judgment of Mr. Justice Devlin in favour of the Plaintiff, who is the widow of a lorry driver who lost his life, when driving a lorry, in an attempt to avoid a little boy named David Morgan (hereinafter called " David ") aged about three and three-quarter years, in College Street, Ammanford. David was a pupil at the nursery school conducted by the Appellants who are the Local Education Authority responsible for the provision and maintenance of schools in the countyof Carmarthen. This school included a nursery school, an infants' school and a junior school, the premises of which abut on College Street, Ammanford, and are delineated on the plan put in evidence, from which it appears that the building marked School Ages 7-11 was the junior school and the building marked Nursery School included both the infants' school and the nursery school, the infants' school occupying the eastern part of the building marked Ag...
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Upon Report from the Appellate Committee, to whom was referred the Cause Tool Metal Manufacturing Company Limited against Tungsten Electric Company Limited, that the Committee had heard Counsel, as well on Wednesday the 20th, Thursday the 21st, Monday the 25th, Tuesday the 26th, Wednesday the 27th and Thursday the 28th days of April last, as on Monday the 2nd and Tuesday the 3d, days of May last, upon the Petition and Appeal of Tool Metal Manufacturing Company Limited, of 3 The Sanctuary, Westminster, in the County of London, praying, That the matter of the Order set forth in the Schedule thereto, namely, an Order of Her Majesty's Court of Appeal of the 29th of March 1954, might be reviewed before Her Majesty the Queen, in Her Court of Parliament, and that the said Order might be reversed, varied or altered, or that the Petitioners might have such other relief in the premises as to Her Majesty the Queen, in Her Court of Parliament, might seem meet; as also upon the printed Case of Tung...
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