An undertaking had been given by the defendant solicitor to retain a sum of pounds 18,000 in his hands or to the credit of his client, a Mr Watts, until various matters had been sorted out. In breach of that undertaking, the solicitor subsequently paid the pounds 18,000 over to Mr Watts and Mr Watts subsequently went bankrupt. That was the position at the date when the enforcement of the undertaking came before the court.
Held: It was no longer possible in any meaningful sense to require the defendant to honour the undertaking, because the result of doing that would only be to make the sum of pounds 18,000 available to Mr Watts’ trustee in bankruptcy. It would not in itself achieve payment of any sum to the claimant, who at no stage had more than the security offered by the undertaking to retain the pounds 18,000 until matters had been sorted out. There had never been an unconditional undertaking to pay pounds 18,000 to the claimant. It was not possible to enforce the undertaking in its original form and instead the appropriate course was to direct an inquiry as to what loss, if any, the claimant had suffered by reason of the breach of the undertaking.
[1988] QB 925 (Note)
England and Wales
Cited by:
Applied – Udall v Capri Lighting Ltd (in liquidation) CA 1987
A claim was made for the price of goods sold and delivered. The defendant’s solicitor gave an oral undertaking to his counterpart to procure the execution by directors of his client company of charges over their homes in return for an adjournment . .
Cited – Clark and Another v Lucas Solicitors Llp ChD 31-Jul-2009
The claimants sought an order (by summary judgment) against the defendant firm of solicitors to require them to perform an undertaking they had given to provide evidence of the discharge of a mortgage. The defendants said the proper remedy was by an . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 09 August 2021; Ref: scu.452354
