Court : House of Lords
EARL LOREBURN L.C. moved that the order appealed from be reversed and the judgment of Scrutton J. restored, and intimated that the reasons for their Lordships' decision would be given at a later date when all the members of the House who were present at the hearing of the argument would be able to attend and express their opinions. July 19. Their Lordships now gave their reasons for this decision. EARL LOREBURN. My Lords, the facts of this case, except in immaterial points, are quite clear and undisputed. The appellant, Mrs. Lloyd, had bought some property, and thus had come to know of the defendant, a solicitor. She had doubts about having got her money's worth, and went to the defendant's office to inquire. When there she saw one Sandles, the defendant's managing clerk, and was induced by him to give him instructions to sell or realize this property, and for that purpose to give him the deeds and to sign two documents which she neither read nor knew the tenor of, but which put into S...
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VISCOUNT HALDANE L.C. My Lords, this appeal raises the question of the true construction to be put on s. 4 of the Trade Disputes Act, 1906. That Act was passed five years after the decision of this House in the case of Taff Vale Ry. Co. v. Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants.(1) It had been there decided that a trade union, registered under the Trade Union Acts, could be sued in its registered name, and also that a trade union, whether registered or not, could, since the Judicature Acts, be sued in a representative action at common law, if the persons selected as defendants were persons who from their position might fairly be taken to represent the union. It was pointed out by Lord Lindley that if a judgment so obtained was for the payment of damages it could be enforced only against the property of the union, and that to reach such property it might be necessary to make the trustees parties to any proceedings. It is common knowledge that this decision gave rise to keen controversy...
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Viscount Haldane LC: The facts in this case are not in controversy, but questions of law of considerable public importance are raised. The appellant, Mrs Scott, filed her petition against her husband, the respondent, for a declaration that their marriage was void because of his impotence. She then took out a summons asking for the appointment of medical inspectors, and that the petition should be heard in camera, and on this summons an order was made for such hearing. The petition duly came on in camera, and the appellant obtained a decree of nullity. The petition was practically undefended, and the evidence was very simple. There was nothing to differentiate the case from many others which are heard in open court, and so far as the public were concerned it might quite well have been so heard. The decree was subsequently, on 15 January 1912, made absolute. In August 1911, the appellant, Mrs Scott, and the appellant Braby, who was her solicitor, sent copies of the shorthand notes of the...
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VISCOUNT HALDANE L.C. My Lords, the appellants are a firm of merchants and woolbrokers. The respondents carry on the business of preserving and canning meat and of boiling down the carcases of sheep and other animals. In the course of this business they have at their disposal a large number of sheepskins. It appears that in the summer of 1910 the respondents were desirous of borrowing 10,000 l. , and requested the appellants to advance that sum. The appellants, who were desirous of obtaining an option to purchase for a term of five years all the sheepskins at the respondents' disposal, agreed to lend the money in consideration of being given such an option. The negotiations which followed resulted in an agreement dated August 24, 1910. Under this agreement the appellants were to lend the respondents the sum of 10,000 l. repayable on demand with interest at 6 per cent. If, however, among other conditions to be observed, the interest was duly paid, the appellants were not to demand repay...
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Earl of Halsbury.—We are all agreed that the interlocutors appealed from ought to be affirmed and the appeal dismissed with costs, but it will be convenient that the reasons for our judgment should he given at a later date. Lord Kinnear. The question in this case is raised by a claim made by the appellants in the liquidation of a limited company, called Hutchison, Main, and Company. The claim is based on an alleged preferable right in a certain security which is said to have been constituted by a debenture created and issued in favour of Hutchison, Main, and Company by another limited company styled Frank A. Johnson, Limited. This debenture is now in the hands of the liquidators, and would seem prima facie to be held by them as an asset of the estate for distribution among the creditors pari passu. But the appellants claim right to a preference which will exclude the other creditors on two different and inconsistent but alternative grounds. They say, first, that at the date of th...
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VISCOUNT HALDANE L.C. My Lords, by the law of this country no man can be restrained of his liberty without authority in law. That is a proposition the maintenance of which is of great importance; but at the same time it is a proposition which must be read in relation to other propositions which are equally important. If a man chooses to go into a dangerous place at the bottom of a quarry or the bottom of a mine, from which by the nature of physical circumstances he cannot escape, it does not follow from the proposition I have enunciated about liberty that he can compel the owner to bring him up out of it. The owner may or may not be under a duty arising from circumstances, on broad grounds the neglect of which may possibly involve him in a criminal charge or a civil liability. It is unnecessary to discuss the conditions and circumstances which might bring about such a result, because they have, in the view I take, nothing to do with false imprisonment. My Lords, there is another propo...
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Lord Chancellor (read by Lord Dunedin). In order to support the decision of the Court of Session the respondents have to establish that two separate questions must be answered in the affirmative. The first of these questions is whether the action complained of, the carrying of passengers by means of the Tay ferries steamers beyond the boundaries of the ferries as denned by the statute of 1911, was ultra vires of the appellants. The second is whether, if this be so, the respondents have a title and interest such that they are entitled to an interdict. I have arrived at the conclusion that the respondents are entitled to succeed on both of these questions. As to the first of them, I can express my opinion very shortly. It is now clear that in the case of a corporate body the test is not what was thought by Blackburn, J., when, in Riche v. Ashbury Railway Carriage Company, in the Exchequer Chamber, he laid down as law that a general power of contracting is an incident to a corporation whi...
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Earl Loreburn. This case has led to a great deal of litigation, and now comes for a second and, I trust, the last time before this House. It arose as follows:—The Glasgow and South-Western Railway Company no less than fourteen years ago wished to construct a branch line, and advertised for tenders. Messrs Boyd and Forrest thereupon tendered, and in September 1900 contracted to make the line for a lump sum of 243,690. The contract provided in the strictest terms that the contractors were to satisfy themselves as to the strata and nature of the work. They were to see the journals of bores that had been put down, but the Company did not guarantee their accuracy or that they would be a guide to the nature of the strata. A hatched brown line on the longitudinal section supplied by the Railway Company showed the assumed dividing line between what the Railway Company inferred from the journal of bores ought to be regarded as hard or as soft material, but the contractor was warned, in th...
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Earl Loreburn. The question here turns upon the construction of a holograph letter addressed by the late Mr Robert Reid to his solicitor, which, it is admitted, is a testamentary writing. I will read the document—[His Lordship read the letter]. Now, this letter was a letter written by a layman, and I think in construing letters written by laymen those who are familiar with the law and its difficulties are sometimes apt—as I feel myself sometimes apt—to overthink the meaning of the particular expressions, and therefore to overstrain the language. I desire to avoid that danger, if I can. I read this will myself as having the following effect: It is a bequest of a monthly payment of 12, 10s. without any period to the duration of that payment being named in the document, but it is evidently meant to be terminable upon the payment of a capital sum of 3000, which at five per cent yields the same sum annually, namely, 150. It is evident to my mind, from the scheme of the doc...
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Earl Loreburn. Being, as I am, of opinion that the interlocutor appealed from ought to be affirmed, I shall not enter upon this case at any length. Mr Anderson, the appellant, claims that Mr Dickie, the respondent, is precluded from building as he pleases on his own land by reason of a restriction which is said to be a real burden on his land. No question of law arises beyond the construction of a clause in a disposition of those lands from one Smith to one Wakefield in 1864, for it was not disputed that any restriction which is to constitute a real burden must be quite clearly expressed, “the presumption being always for freedom,” as my noble and learned friend, Lord Dunedin, expresses it. I have had the advantage of reading in print his opinion in this case, and I concur with him. If this had been an ordinary contract I should have been disposed to give effect, if I could, to what I believe was the intention between the parties, though obscurely worded; but I cannot say t...
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