The parties to a partnership dispute respectively undertook to pay all sums of money received by them into a particular account pending trial. One of the parties allegedly failed to honour his undertaking, and the other party sought his committal, or else that he be at liberty to issue a writ of attachment against the alleged defaulter. Counsel for the defendant submitted, inter alia, that the motion to commit must fail because no time limit had been set for the fulfilment of the undertaking, and that therefore he could not be said to be in breach.
Held: The case was not within any exception to the Debtors Act, 1869. The undertaking in fact was merely to pay into a joint account to await the decision of the court
Byrne J
[1903] 2 Ch 312
Debtors Act 1869 4
England and Wales
Cited by:
Distinguished – Cotton v Heyl ChD 1939
Mr Cotton brought proceedings against Mr Heyl and a company which were compromised on the terms of a Tomlin order which contained an undertaking by Mr Heyl to pay Mr Cotton pounds 1,000 forthwith and pounds 4,000 out of the first monies received by . .
Cited – Hussain v Vaswani and Others CA 18-Sep-2020
Breach of Undertaking went Beyond Debt
The tenant had obtained a stay of execution of a warrant for possession, by undertaking to discharge the arrears. He failed to pay, and the Court now considered whether such a failure was a contempt with a possible imprisonment for punishment. The . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contempt of Court
Updated: 11 December 2021; Ref: scu.654052