Court : House of Lords
LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, Fairchild 1. In Fairchild v Glenhaven Funeral Services Ltd [2002] UKHL 22; [2003] 1 AC 32 the House decided that a worker who had contracted mesothelioma after being wrongfully exposed to significant quantities of asbestos dust at different times by more than one employer or occupier of premises could sue any of them, notwithstanding that he could not prove which exposure had caused the disease. All members of the House emphasised the exceptional nature of the liability. The standard rule is that it is not enough to show that the defendant's conduct increased the likelihood of damage being suffered and may have caused it. It must be proved on a balance of probability that the defendant's conduct did cause the damage in the sense that it would not otherwise have happened. In Fairchild, the state of scientific knowledge about the mechanism by which asbestos fibres cause mesothelioma did not enable any claimant who had been exposed to more than one significant sour...
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LORD NICHOLLS OF BIRKENHEAD My Lords, 1. Most people in this country who work as employees stop working by the time they are 65 years of age. The percentage of the workforce carrying on after that age is very small. One disadvantage suffered by those who do continue working is that they no longer have the benefit of redundancy pay or compensation for unfair dismissal. A higher proportion of men continue in employment after 65 than women. So, it is said, the cut-off age fixed by the employment legislation indirectly discriminates against men. An apparently neutral statutory provision has in fact a disparate impact on men. That is the claim in these proceedings. The legislative cut-off age, it is said, infringes the equal pay obligations imposed by article 141 of the EC Treaty. 2. This summary over-simplifies the facts. The detailed facts are set out by my noble and learned friend Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe. But the summary suffices to identify the essential issue. 3. My Lords, these...
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LORD NICHOLLS OF BIRKENHEAD My Lords, 1. This appeal raises questions about the ingredients of the statutory offence of conspiracy and their application in the circumstances of this case. Shorn of its complexities the context is a charge of conspiracy to launder money brought against the appellant, Mr Abdulrahman Saik. He operated a bureau de change in London, near Marble Arch. At his trial he pleaded guilty, subject to the qualification that he did not know the money was the proceeds of crime. He only suspected this was so. This qualified plea was accepted. The issue before your Lordships is whether the offence to which the appellant pleaded guilty in this qualified way is an offence known to law. Reasonable grounds for suspicion are enough for the substantive offence of laundering money. But are they enough for a conspiracy to commit that offence? 2. The mental ingredient in the statutory offence of conspiracy has given rise to difficulty. Some of the case law is confusing, and the a...
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LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, 1. Over a period of about six years ending in March 1996, Mr Andrew Payne, a solicitor practising near Solihull, misappropriated about 750,000 held in his client account. In each of the years 1988-1995 he delivered to the Law Society an accountant's report in which Mr Ian Mascord, a partner in the firm of Sephton and Co of Solihull, certified that he had examined Mr Payne's books and accounts and was satisfied that he had complied with the Solicitors' Accounts Rules 1991. Mr Mascord was negligent, if not worse, in signing these reports since he could not have made a proper examination without discovering the misappropriations. 2. The Law Society, which has broad supervisory and disciplinary powers over the profession, relied upon the reports by refraining from making the investigation it would have made if the reports had not been delivered or had indicated that something was amiss. Mr Payne had staved off discovery by taking money from one client to pay off ano...
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LORD NICHOLLS OF BIRKENHEAD My Lords, 1. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speeches of my noble and learned friends Lord Scott of Foscote and Lord Mance. For the reasons they give, with which I agree, I would allow this appeal. LORD HOPE OF CRAIGHEAD My Lords, 2. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speeches of my noble and learned friends Lord Scott of Foscote and Lord Mance. I agree with them, and for the reasons they give I would allow the appeal. LORD SCOTT OF FOSCOTE My Lords, Introduction 3. The Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 ("the 1988 Act"), sections 555 to 558, and the Income Tax (Entertainers and Sportsmen) Regulations 1987 (SI 1987/530) (the 1987 Regulations) make provision for the taxation of entertainers and sportsmen who are not resident in the United Kingdom in respect of their profits or gains arising from commercial activity carried out by them within the United Kingdom. The relevant statutory provisions were first enacted in the Fin...
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LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, The Trap Grounds 1. This appeal arises out of an application on 21 June 2002 by Miss Catherine Robinson, who lives in North Oxford, to register the Trap Grounds as a town or village green under the Commons Registration Act 1965. The site as it is today does not fit the traditional image of a town or village green. Mr Vivian Chapman, a member of the Bar expert in the law of commons and greens, described it in a report on the application which he wrote for the registration authority, the Oxfordshire County Council: "The Trap Grounds are nine acres of undeveloped land in North Oxford. They lie between the railway to the west and the Oxford Canal to the east. About one third€is permanently under water€This part€is usually called 'the reed beds'. [They] are inaccessible to ordinary walkers since access would require wading equipment. The other two thirds ['the scrubland']€are much drier and consist of some mature trees, numerous semi-mature tr...
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LORD NICHOLLS OF BIRKENHEAD My Lords, 1. These two appeals concern that most intractable of problems: how to achieve fairness in the division of property following a divorce. In White v White [2001] 1 AC 596 your Lordships' House sought to assist judges who have the difficult task of exercising the wide discretionary powers conferred on the court by Part II of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. In particular the House emphasised that in seeking a fair outcome there is no place for discrimination between a husband and wife and their respective roles. Discrimination is the antithesis of fairness. In assessing the parties' contributions to the family there should be no bias in favour of the money-earner and against the home-maker and the child-carer. This is a principle of universal application. It is applicable to all marriages. 2. In the White case the capital assets were more than sufficient to meet the parties' financial needs. The two appeals now before the House again involve large am...
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LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. The issue at the heart of these conjoined appeals is whether the English court has jurisdiction to entertain proceedings brought here by claimants against a foreign state and its officials at whose hands the claimants say that they suffered systematic torture, in the territory of the foreign state. The issue turns on the relationship, in these circumstances, between two principles of international law. One principle, historically the older of the two, is that one sovereign state will not, save in certain specified instances, assert its judicial authority over another. The second principle, of more recent vintage but of the highest authority among principles of international law, is one that condemns and criminalises the official practice of torture, requires states to suppress the practice and provides for the trial and punishment of officials found to be guilty of it. Thus, like the Court of Appeal of Ontario in Bouzari v Islamic Republic of Iran ...
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LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. In Walkley v Precision Forgings Ltd [1979] 1 WLR 606 the House ruled that the court may not exercise its power to disapply the ordinary time limit in a personal injuries action under what is now section 33 of the Limitation Act 1980 where a claimant had issued proceedings in respect of those injuries before the ordinary time limit expired and has brought a second action (in which the application under section 33 is made) after expiry. In this appeal the House is invited by the appellant to depart from that ruling pursuant to the Practice Statement (Judicial Precedent) [1966] 1 WLR 1234. The Motor Insurers' Bureau ("the MIB"), the only effective respondent, submits that the House should adhere to its decision. The proceedings 2. On 12 April 1998 the appellant was injured in a road traffic accident for which the first defendant, Mr Sadler, was wholly responsible. Mr Sadler was not insured, as he should have been, against third party risks. The MIB no...
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LORD NICHOLLS OF BIRKENHEAD My Lords, 1. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Scott of Foscote. For the reasons he gives, with which I agree, I would allow these appeals. LORD HOPE OF CRAIGHEAD My Lords, 2. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Scott of Foscote. I agree with it, and for the reasons he gives I too would allow the appeals. LORD SCOTT OF FOSCOTE My Lords, Introduction 3. London has three very ancient markets. Smithfield Market is a market for the sale of meat. Billingsgate Market is a market for fish. Both are owned by the Corporation of London ('the Corporation'). Each of these markets is entitled under common law to protection from competition by any rival market held within a distance of 7 miles. The third ancient market, the market with which this appeal is particularly concerned, is the Covent Garden Market. 4. As is well known the Covent Garden Market, or the...
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