The concept of ‘valuable consideration’ was defined: ‘A valuable consideration in the sense of the law may consist either in some right, interest, profit or benefit accruing to one party, or some forbearance, detriment, loss or responsibility, given, suffered or undertaken by the other.’
Lush J
(1875) LR 10 Exch 162, (1875) LR 10 Exch 153, (1876) 1 AC 554
England and Wales
Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.630712
Vaisey J said: ‘As a rule the date properly to be inserted in a deed delivered as an escrow is the date at which it was so delivered and not the date when the condition of the delivery has been fulfilled.’
Vaisey J
(1952) ATC 405
Cited by:
Cited – Alan Estates Ltd v WG Stores Ltd and Another CA 1-Jul-1981
The proposed tenant wanted to get into possession, and was given a key and paid a quarter’s rent to the lessor’s solicitors to be held as stakeholders, before the lease had been formally granted. An undated lease and counterpart were executed and . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.252345
The parties disputed whether good title had been shown when an assent under seal had been used where a conveyance ordinarily should have been used.
Held: Good title had been shown. Though the law is concerned with substance rather than form, it would not be consistent with the orderly development of the common law if the court could, as a matter of construction, produce the result that it believed the parties to the contract wanted by rewriting the contract.
Wilberforce J said that a purchaser of land is entitled to be satisfied ‘that his vendor is seized of the estate which he is purporting to sell, in this case the fee simple, and that he is in a position, without the possibility of dispute or litigation, to pass that fee simple to the purchaser.’ and
‘Section 63 states that every conveyance is effectual to pass all the estate which the conveying party has or which is intended to be so passed; and if that is read in conjunction with the definition section, Section 205 (1) (ii), by which the expression ‘conveyance’ includes an assent, that produces the result that an assent, provided that it is under seal, is effective to pass whatever estate the conveying party has.
I would be reluctant to decide this case on the basis of a mechanical argument of that kind alone, but I think on the broad framework of the Act, provided that the sole form of requirement of being under seal is complied with, any document, since 1925, at any rate, is effective to pass a legal estate, provided that the intention so to pass it can be ascertained.
I therefore feel on both those branches of the argument that the vendor here is correct in saying that, although the document is described as an assent, and although admittedly the case was not one for which an assent should be used, yet, nevertheless, on the intention to be ascertained from it and having regard to the statutory provisions, it was perfectly effective to pass the fee simple to the purchaser, and I propose so to declare.’ and
Where the title shown is less than perfect, the question is whether the risk is ‘so remote or so shadowy as to be one to which no serious attention need be paid . . the test must always be, would the court, in an action for specific performance at the instance of the vendors, force a title containing the alleged defect upon a reluctant purchaser ?’
Wilberforce J
[1961] 1 WLR 449
Law of Property Act 1925 63 20(91)
Cited by:
Cited – PW and Co v Milton Gate Investments Ltd (BT Property Ltd and another, Part 20 defendants) ChD 8-Aug-2003
The parties, head lessor and sub-lessess, had assumed that following Brown -v- Wilson the sub-lease would continue upon the determination of the head lease, and had overlooked Pennell which overruled Brown v Wilson. However the lease made express . .
Cited – Barclays Bank Plc v Weeks Legg and Dean (a Firm); Barclays Bank Plc v Lougher and Others; Barclays Bank Plc v Hopkin John and Co CA 21-May-1998
The defendant solicitors had each acted for banks in completing charges over property. They had given the standard agreed form of undertaking to secure a good and marketable title, and the banks now alleged that they were in breach because . .
Cited – Harbour Estates Limited v HSBC Bank Plc ChD 15-Jul-2004
The lease contained a break clause. The parties disputed whether the benefit of the clause was personal to the orginal lessee, or whether it touched and concerned the land, and therefore the benefit of it passed with the land.
Held: The . .
Cited – Barclays Bank Plc v Weeks Legg and Dean ChD 26-Feb-1996
The failure by a conveyancer to disclose a right of way either to his lay client or to the lender was not a breach of his undertaking to acquire a good and marketable title. The Solicitor had applied the money in accordance with the undertaking even . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Land
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.190576
An agreement is not penalty if it simply reserves to a creditor the right to have his debt paid in full in the event that his debtor does not pay on a due date a smaller sum that he has agreed to accept in satisfaction
Lord Hatherley said: ‘I take the law to be perfectly clear upon these matters which we have to consider with reference to this and the subsequent agreements, namely, that where there is a debt actually due, and in respect of that debt a security is given, be it by way of mortgage or be it by way of stipulation that in case of its not being paid at the time appointed a larger sum shall become payable, and be paid, in either of those cases Equity regards the security that has been given as a mere pledge for the debt, and it will not allow either a forfeiture of the property pledged, or any augmentation of the debt as a penal provision, on the ground that Equity regards the contemplated forfeiture which might take place at Law with reference to the estate as in the nature of a penal provision, against which Equity will relieve when the object in view, namely, the securing of the debt, is attained, and regarding also the stipulation for the payment of a larger sum of money, if the sum be not paid at the time it is due, as a penalty and a forfeiture against which Equity will relieve.
Now, that being clear on the one hand, it is equally clear on the other that where there is a debt due, and an agreement is entered into at the time of that debt having become due and not being paid, in regard to farther indulgence to be conceded to the debtor, or farther time to be accorded to him for the payment of the debt, or in regard to his paying it immediately, if that be a portion of the stipulations of the agreement, or at some future time which may be named, and the creditor is willing to allow him certain advantages and deduction from that debt, as well as to extend the time for its payment, if adequate and proper security in the mind of the creditor be afforded him as his part of the bargain in respect of which he is to make these concessions, then it is perfectly competent to the creditor to say: ‘If the payment be not made modo et forma as I have stipulated, then forthwith the right to the original debt reverts, and it is to be open to me to proceed with reference to the original debt, and to exercise all those powers which I possess for compelling payment of the original debt; in other words, I am entitled to be replaced in the position in which I was when this agreement; which has been not broken, was entered into’.’
Lord Colonsay said: ‘It is the reservation of an existing right. It is not the emergence of a right that was never in existence at all except on the violation of the agreement which was made. It is merely the reservation of what is the just and honest right of the party, which he was willing to waive to a certain extent, provided his debtor would do certain things, but if the debtor fails in doing those things, then that right which belongs to the creditor shall continue to belong to him, and he may enforce it’.
Lord Westbury said: ‘It is plain enough that if part of a debt has been duly and unconditionally remitted, the part so unconditionally remitted ceases. If it be revived it becomes a subject in respect of which there is no longer any contract in existence, and which therefore may properly be regarded as a penalty.’
Lord Westbury, Lord Hatherley, Lord Colonsay
(1869) LR 4 HL 1, (1869) 4 HL 1
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Wright and Another (Liquidators of SHB Realisations Ltd) v The Prudential Assurance Company Ltd ChD 6-Mar-2018
IVA is a special form of contract
Liquidators asked the court whether sums sought by the insolvent company’s landlords were payable and or provable. Under an IVA, the copany had been paying reduced rents, but the arrangement document provided that the full rents would be restored on . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.605850
The Defendant had gambled at the plaintiff’s casino, using cheques drawn on a company to obtain chips, all of which he lost. The cheques not having been honoured, Crockfords sued the Defendant for repayment of the loan made to him on the issue of the chips, and applied for summary judgment. At first instance, Henry J held that the cheques had been accepted in conditional repayment of the loan, so that on dishonour of the cheques, the Defendant remained liable on the loan. He then held that, just as section 16(2) and (4) validated the cheques, so they validated the underlying loan.
Held: A cheque which had been given in exchange for gaming tokens which complied with the Act was to be enforced as would be any other cheque. The use of such tokens was regulated and supported by the law. No new sub-species of contract was created by the Act.
Lloyd LJ said: ‘The legislative purpose of section 16 of the 1968 Act was to discourage gaming on credit. But consistently with that overall objective Parliament had to allow machinery for enabling lawful gaming to take place at licensed clubs. Otherwise those taking part in the gaming would have had to bring their own cash. The solution adopted was a neat one, and is to be found in section 16(1) and (2). Provided the cheque meets the requirements of subsection (2) and subsection (3), the giving of cash or tokens in exchange for the cheque does not contravene subsection (1).
The error in Mr Glick’s argument is to treat section 16(2) as if it only validated the cheque. It does more than that. It validates the whole transaction. Subsection (1) is subject to subsection (2). Subsection (2) provides that the transaction-that is to say the giving of the cash or tokens in exchange for the cheque-shall not contravene section 16(1). Provided the cheque complies with subsections (2) and (3) there is nothing in subsection (1) to prohibit the underlying loan.
What then was the purpose of section 16(4)? The explanation, like so much else in our law, is historical. The old legislation did not make loans for lawful gaming illegal. The Act of 1710 is concerned with securities. It provides that all securities for repaying money knowingly lent for gaming should be ‘utterly void frustrate and of none effect to all intents and purposes whatsoever’. But this was found to work injustice on an innocent holder for value-that is to say a third party to whom the security may have been negotiated without notice. So 125 years later, by the Act of 1835, Parliament amended the law so as to provide that the security should not be void, but should be deemed to have been given for an illegal consideration. Nothing in either Act affects the underlying loan.
The subsequent history is traced in CHT Ltd v Ward [1965] 2 QB 63. It was argued that it would be absurd to invalidate the security but to leave the contract of loan unaffected. That cannot have been Parliament’s intention. This argument was accepted by the Divisional Court in Carlton Hall Club Ltd v Laurence best reported in 98 LJKB 305. It was held that the consideration for the security which was deemed to be illegal as between immediate parties under the Act of 1835 tainted the loan itself.
It was to prevent this line of argument being resurrected that Parliament found it necessary, or at any rate desirable, to enact section 16(4). The source of the taint has now been removed. There is no longer, therefore, any basis for the argument that the underlying loan is illegal or unenforceable. Indeed, to turn the argument the other way, it would surely be absurd to hold that Parliament had, by the Act of 1968, made the cheque enforceable, but made it a criminal offence to enter into the underlying contract of loan.’
Lloyd LJ
Gazette 08-Jan-1992, [1992] 1 WLR 355
Gaming Act 1968 16
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Aspinall’s Club Ltd v Al-Zayat CA 19-Oct-2007
The claimant had sued the defendant for non-payment under a cheque for andpound;2 million. The cheque had been issued to replace earlier cheques given but not met, for sums staked for gambling at the claimant’s casino. The defendant said that the . .
Cited – Grosvenor Casinos Ltd v National Bank of Abu Dhabi ComC 17-Mar-2008
Banker’s reference no guarantee
An Arab businessman lost pounds 18m at the claimant casino, and wrote scrip cheques against his account with the defendant. The claimant obtained judgment, but being unable to enforce that judgment pursued his bank. The club had used a system where . .
Cited – The Ritz Hotel Casino Ltd v Al Daher QBD 15-Aug-2014
The claimant sought to recover andpound;1m on unpaid cheques. The cheques represented half of the sum gambled away by the defendant in one evening. She now alleged that the claimant had not complied with its duties under the 2005 Act to act . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Banking
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.79676
The purchaser of a caravan park purported to terminate the 10 year licences under which the owners of the various caravans occupied their respective pitches. The sale agreement of the caravan site had contained a covenant by the purchaser with the vendor to perform and observe the future obligations imposed by the licences. The claimant sought to assert that a term implied into her contract with the defendant was unfair under the 1999 Regulations.
Held: Under the sale agreement the purchaser took the benefit of the licences conditionally on accepting the burdens thereunder, and there is a principle that one who takes the benefit of a licence to occupy the land granted to another in the form of an income stream, presumably by receiving periodical payments, will be bound by the burden to permit the licence-holder to occupy his pitch.
Regulation 4(2) excluded terms which reflected mandatory statutory provisions, but clauses implied at common law were to reflect the unspoken but obvious intentions of the parties. It was highly unlikely that the 1999 Regulations could ever apply to such terms. This was supported by an examination of the indicative list of unfair terms in the Regulations.
Judge Pelling, QC
Times 13-Nov-2006, [2006] All ER (D) 161 (Nov), 2006 WL 3206169
Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (SI 1999 No 2083)
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Office of Fair Trading v Abbey National Plc and seven Others ComC 24-Apr-2008
The Office sought a declaration that the respondent and other banks were subject to the provisions of the Regulations in their imposition of bank charges to customer accounts, and in particular as to the imposition of penalties or charges for the . .
Cited – Davies and Others v Jones and Another CA 9-Nov-2009
The parties contracted for the sale of land for development. The contract allowed for the costs of environmental remediation, but disputed the true figure set by the eventual builder and retained. The court now heard argument about whether the sum . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Consumer
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.247641
The owners of a ship sought to rescind charters saying that they had been procured by bribery.
Held: A claim to rescind a contract by reason of bribery fell within the scope of an arbitration clause under which the parties had agreed to refer to arbitration ‘any dispute arising under this charter’. The issue of bribery could be dealt with within that arbitration.
Lord Hoffmann said: ‘It depends upon the intention of the parties as expressed in their agreement. Only the agreement can tell you what kinds of disputes they intended to submit to arbitration. But the meaning which the parties intended to express by the words which they used will be affected by the commercial background and the readers’ understanding of the purpose for which the agreement was made. Businessmen in particular are assumed to have entered into agreements to achieve some rational commercial purpose and an understanding of this purpose will influence the way in which one interprets their language’.
and ‘the construction of an arbitration clause should start from the assumption that the parties, as rational businessmen, are likely to have intended any dispute arising out of the relationship into which they have entered or purported to enter to be decided by the same tribunal. The clause should be construed in accordance with this presumption unless the language makes it clear that certain questions were intended to be excluded from the arbitrator’s jurisdiction.’
Lord Hoffmann, Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Scott of Foscote, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood
[2007] ArbLR 24, [2007] UKHL 40, [2008] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 254, [2007] 4 All ER 951, [2007] Bus LR 1719, [2007] 114 Con LR 69, [2007] 2 CLC 553, [2007] 2 All ER (Comm) 1053, [2007] CILL 2528
Bailii
Arbitration Act 1996 7 9
England and Wales
Citing:
At first instance – Fiona Trust and Holding Corp and others v Privalov and others ComC 20-Oct-2006
The parties disputed whether their claim should be arbitrated.
Held: A claim as to whether the contract itself had been made was not one which could be arbitrated by provisions in that contract. It does not arise ‘under’ the contract. The . .
See Also – Fiona Trust Holding Corp and others v Privalov and others ComC 21-May-2007
Allegations were made of different varieties of fraud. Applications were made for freezing orders. . .
Appeal from – Fiona Trust and Holding Corporation and others v Privalov and others CA 24-Jan-2007
The court was asked whether when contracts have been induced by bribery and have been rescinded on discovery of the bribery, that constitutes a dispute which can be determined by arbitration in the context of a common form of arbitration clause.
Cited – Overseas Union v AA Mutual International Insurance Co Ltd 1988
Evans J said that there was a broad distinction between clauses which referred ‘only those disputes which may arise regarding the rights and obligations which are created by the contract itself’ and those which ‘show an intention to refer some wider . .
Cited – Harbour Assurance Co (UK) Ltd v Kansa General International Insurance Co Ltd CA 7-Apr-1993
An action was brought by re-insurers for a declaration that reinsurance policies were void for illegality, and that the plaintiffs were not liable under them. The illegality alleged was that the defendants were not registered or approved to carry on . .
Cited – Fillite (Runcorn) Ltd v Aqua-Lift CA 1989
The court considered whether claims arising from misrepresentation or breach of a collateral contrat were claims arising ‘under’ the contract so as to be governed by the disputes provisions in it.
Held: The disputes did not arise ‘under the . .
Cited – Union of India v Aaby’s Rederi A/S, The Evje HL 1975
Lord Dilhorne said of the words ‘to be settled in London’: ‘At first sight those words appear to me to mean no more and no less than that the contributions to be made have to be determined in London and paid there, and that implies determined in . .
Cited – Heyman v Darwins Limited HL 1942
An arbitration clause will survive a repudiatory breach: ‘I agree with the Lord Chancellor in thinking that the true ground of the decision in Jureidini v National British and Irish Millers Insurance Co Ltd was the narrowness of the field of . .
Cited – Mackender v Feldia AG CA 1966
A clause provided that an insurance policy should be governed by Belgian law and that ‘any disputes arising thereunder shall be exclusively subject to Belgian jurisdiction.’ The underwriters avoided the contract for non-disclosure of material facts . .
Cited – Ashville Investments Ltd v Elmer Contractors Ltd CA 1987
A clause in the contract refered to arbitration: ‘any dispute or difference as to the construction of this contract or as to any matter or thing of whatsoever nature arising thereunder or in connection therewith.’
Held: The court should adopt . .
See Also – Fiona Trust Holding Corporation and others v Privalov and others ComC 19-Jan-2007
. .
Cited by:
See Also – Fiona Trust and Holding Corporation and others v Privalov and others ComC 22-Jul-2008
. .
Cited – Trident Turboprop (Dublin) Ltd v First Flight Couriers Ltd CA 2-Apr-2009
The appellant entered into two aircraft leasing agreements but were unable to maintain payments. They appealed against rejection of their argument that the agreements were not exempt from the controls under the 1977 Act by being international supply . .
Cited – S Ltd v C Ltd ComC 27-Feb-2009
Defamation allegation not subject to arbitration
The parties had an agreement referring disputes between them to arbitration. One party raised an allegation of defamation, but the arbitrator refused jurisdiction. The parties had chosen the London Metal Exchange for its expertise in metals trading, . .
Cited – Aspect Contracts (Asbetos) Ltd v Higgins Construction Plc SC 17-Jun-2015
Aspect had claimed the return of funds paid by it to the appellant Higgins under an adjudication award in a construction contract disute. The claimant had been asked to prpare asbestos surveys and reports on maisonettes which Higgins was to acquire . .
Cited – Emmott v Michael Wilson and Partners Ltd ComC 12-Jan-2009
The claimant, a party to an arbitration, sought first an order requiring the defendant to comply with an order made by the arbitrator for the transfer of certain shares, and second an asset freezing order.
Held: The conditions for a peremptory . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Arbitration, Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.259907
The court considered what would amount to a contract in writing under the 1996 Act. Ward LJ said: ‘Section 107(2) gives three categories where the agreement is to be treated in writing. The first is where the agreement, whether or not it is signed by the parties, is made in writing. That must mean where the agreement is contained in a written document which stands as a record of the agreement and all that was contained in the agreement. The second category, an exchange of communications in writing, likewise is capable of containing all that needs to be known about the agreement. One is therefore led to believe by what used to be known as the eiusdem generis rule that the third category will be to the same effect namely that the evidence in writing is evidence of the whole agreement.
Sub-section (3) is consistent with that view. Where the parties agree by reference to terms which are in writing, the legislature is envisaging that all of the material terms are in writing and that the oral agreement refers to that written record.
Sub-section (4) allows an agreement to be evidenced in writing if it (the agreement) is recorded by one of the parties or by a third party with the authority of the parties to the agreement. What is there contemplated is, thus, a record (which by sub-section (6) can be in writing or a record by any means) of everything which has been said. Again it is a record of the whole agreement.’ and ‘On the point of construction of section 107, what has to be evidenced in writing is, literally, the agreement, which means all of it, not part of it. A record of the agreement also suggests a complete agreement, not a partial one. . . It must be remembered that by virtue of section 107(1) the need for an agreement in writing is the precondition for the application of the other provisions of Part II of the Act, not just the jurisdictional threshold for a reference to adjudication. I say ‘unfortunately’ because, like Auld L.J. whose judgment I have now read in draft, I would regard it as a pity if too much ‘jurisdictional wrangling’ were to limit the opportunities for expeditious adjudication having an interim effect only. No doubt adjudicators will be robust in excluding the trivial from the ambit of the agreement and the matter must be entrusted to their common sense. ‘
Lords Justice Auld, Ward and Robert Walker
Gazette 11-Apr-2002, [2002] CILL 1841, (2002) 18 Const LJ 425, [2002] TCLR 21, 83 Con LR 99, [2002] EWCA Civ 270, [2002] CLC 905, [2002] 1 WLR 2344, [2002] BLR 217
Bailii
Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 107
England and Wales
Cited by:
Followed – Trustees of the Stratfield SAYE Estate v AHL Construction Limited TCC 6-Dec-2004
The court was asked what was meant by a contract in writing under section 10. Jackson J applied RJT saying: ‘The principle of law which I derive from the majority judgments in RJT is this: an agreement is only evidenced in writing for the purposes . .
Cited – Allen Wilson Joinery Ltd v Privetgrange Construction Ltd TCC 17-Nov-2008
The claimant sought summary judgment to enforce an arbitration award in a construction dispute. The defendants argued that the contract was not sufficiently evidenced in writing to accord with the 1996 Act. The claimants replied that any oral . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Construction, Contract, Arbitration
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.170039
In construing a contract, three principles can be found. The contextual scene is always relevant. Secondly, what is admissible as a matter of the rules of evidence under this heading is what is arguably relevant, but admissibility is not decisive. The real issue is what evidence of surrounding circumstances may ultimately be allowed to influence the question of interpretation. That depends on what meanings the language read against the objective contextual scene will let in. Thirdly, the enquiry is objective: the question is what reasonable persons, circumstanced as the actual parties were, would have had in mind.
Lord Wilberforce commented on the Wooler case saying: ‘I think that all of their Lordships are saying, in different words, the same thing — what the court must do must be to place itself in thought in the same factual matrix as that in which the parties were’.
Lord Wilberforce said: ‘No contracts are made in a vacuum: there is always a setting in which they have to be placed. The nature of what is legitimate to have regard to is usually described as ‘the surrounding circumstances’ but this phrase is imprecise: it can be illustrated but hardly defined. In a commercial contract it is certainly right that the court should know the commercial purpose of the contract and this in turn presupposes knowledge of the genesis of the transaction, the background, the context, the market in which the parties are operating.’
Lord Wilberforce
[1976] 1 WLR 989, [1976] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 621, [1976] 3 All ER 570
England and Wales
Citing:
Explained – Charrington and Co Ltd v Wooler HL 1914
The court is entitled to know the surrounding circumstances which prevailed when the contract was made. A contract is not to be construed in a vacuum. The term ‘market’ did not have a ‘fixed legal significance’ .
Lord Dunedin said: ‘in order to . .
Cited by:
Cited – Wilson v Secretary of State for Trade and Industry; Wilson v First County Trust Ltd (No 2) HL 10-Jul-2003
The respondent appealed against a finding that the provision which made a loan agreement completely invalid for lack of compliance with the 1974 Act was itself invalid under the Human Rights Act since it deprived the respondent of its property . .
Cited – Mannai Investment Co Ltd v Eagle Star Assurance HL 21-May-1997
Minor Irregularity in Break Notice Not Fatal
Leases contained clauses allowing the tenant to break the lease by serving not less than six months notice to expire on the third anniversary of the commencement date of the term of the lease. The tenant gave notice to determine the leases on 12th . .
Cited – Westminster City Council v National Asylum Support Service HL 17-Oct-2002
The applicant sought assistance from the local authority. He suffered from spinal myeloma, was destitute and an asylum seeker.
Held: Although the Act had withdrawn the obligation to provide assistance for many asylum seekers, those who were . .
Cited – Investors Compensation Scheme Ltd v West Bromwich Building Society HL 19-Jun-1997
Account taken of circumstances wihout ambiguity
The respondent gave advice on home income plans. The individual claimants had assigned their initial claims to the scheme, but later sought also to have their mortgages in favour of the respondent set aside.
Held: Investors having once . .
Cited – Youell and Others v Bland Welch and Co Ltd and Others CA 1992
The court considered whether an underwiter’s slip was admissible when construing the policy which followed.
Held: Staughton LJ said: ‘It is now, in my view, somewhat old-fashioned to approach such a problem armed with the parol evidence rule, . .
Cited – Bruton v London and Quadrant Housing Trust HL 24-Jun-1999
The claimant sought to oblige the respondent to repair his flat under the 1988 Act. The respondent replied that the arrangement was a licence only, and not protected under the Act.
Held: The housing association had a temporary licence to . .
Cited – Catnic Components Ltd and Another v Hill and Smith Ltd HL 1982
The plaintiffs had been established as market leaders with their patented construction, had ample production capacity and stocks, but had never granted any licence under their patent. The patent was for a novel type of galvanised steel lintel, which . .
Cited – Kirin-Amgen Inc and others v Hoechst Marion Roussel Limited and others etc HL 21-Oct-2004
The claims arose in connection with the validity and alleged infringement of a European Patent on erythropoietin (‘EPO’).
Held: ‘Construction is objective in the sense that it is concerned with what a reasonable person to whom the utterance . .
Cited – McDowall v Inland Revenue SCIT 26-Jun-2003
Gifts had been made from an estate, purportedly under a power of attorney. During his lifetime, the deceased had made various gifts to his children. As he begand to suffer Alzheimers, he gave a power of attorney. He had substantial assets, well . .
Cited – Barclays Bank Plc v Weeks Legg and Dean (a Firm); Barclays Bank Plc v Lougher and Others; Barclays Bank Plc v Hopkin John and Co CA 21-May-1998
The defendant solicitors had each acted for banks in completing charges over property. They had given the standard agreed form of undertaking to secure a good and marketable title, and the banks now alleged that they were in breach because . .
Cited – Crancour Ltd v Da Silvaesa and Another CA 26-Feb-1986
The plaintiff sought possession of two rooms in a house occupied by the defendants separately. The agreements stated that they were licences. The agreements excluded the occupiers between 10:30am and noon on each day. The occupiers claimed to be . .
Cited – Persimmon Homes (South Coast) Ltd v Hall Aggregates (South Coast) Ltd and Another TCC 10-Oct-2008
The parties had agreed for the sale of land under an option agreement. The builder purchasers now sought to exercise rights to adjust the price downwards.
Held: The provisions had been intended and had achieved a prompt and binding settlement . .
Cited – Islam, Regina v HL 10-Jun-2009
The defendant appealed against a confiscation order saying that it should not have been set at values which reflected the black market value of the drugs he had imported.
Held: The appeal failed. The court could take account of the illegal . .
Cited – Berrisford v Mexfield Housing Co-Operative Ltd SC 9-Nov-2011
The tenant appealed against an order granting possession. The tenancy, being held of a mutual housing co-operative did not have security but was in a form restricting the landlord’s right to recover possession, and the tenant resisted saying that it . .
Cited – Marley v Rawlings and Another SC 22-Jan-2014
A husband and wife had each executed the will which had been prepared for the other, owing to an oversight on the part of their solicitor; the question which arose was whether the will of the husband, who died after his wife, was valid. The parties . .
Cited – Arnold v Britton and Others SC 10-Jun-2015
Absurdity did not defeat a clear clause
A standard lease of plots on a caravan park, contained a provision which appeared to increase the rent by 10% in each year. The tenants argued that such a substantial increase could not have been intended.
Held: The tenants’ appeal failed . .
Cited – Arnold v Britton and Others SC 10-Jun-2015
Absurdity did not defeat a clear clause
A standard lease of plots on a caravan park, contained a provision which appeared to increase the rent by 10% in each year. The tenants argued that such a substantial increase could not have been intended.
Held: The tenants’ appeal failed . .
Cited – Wood v Capita Insurance Services Ltd SC 29-Mar-2017
Construction of term of contract for the sale and purchase of the entire issued share capital of a company.
Held: The appeal was dismissed: ‘the SPA may have become a poor bargain, as it appears that it did not notify the sellers of a warranty . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Commercial, Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.184430
The defendant merchant banks resisted two group claims for annual bonuses for 2008 made by the employee claimants. They now sought summary judgment against the claims. The employer had declared a guaranteed minimum bonus pool available to make the payments, and had written to each employee notifying them of the provisional individual amounts. The company said the sums remained discretionary.
Held: The announcement of the bonus pool did not create any contractual obligation to any particular employee. There was no stipulation as to any amount any individual might be paid, and nor would any calculation by the court be practicable. Though the claims based on the individual letters faced difficulties, there remained sufficient possibility that the arguments might succeed to allow the claims to go ahead; the conditions for review of the promises were calculable, and the review actually undertaken was subject to criticism.
Simon J
[2010] EWHC 1249 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Nigeria v Santolina Investment Corp and others ChD 7-Mar-2007
The federal government sought to recover properties from the defendants which it said were the proceeds of corrupt behaviour by the principal defendant who had been State Governor of a province. The claimant sought summary judgment.
Held: . .
Cited – Khatri v Cooperatieve Centrale Raiffeisen-Boerenleenbank Ba CA 23-Apr-2010
The claimant appealed against refusal of summary judgment on his claim for payment of a discretionary employment bonus by the defendant.
Held: The appeal succeeded and summary judgment was given. The contract properly construed did give rise . .
Cited – Pagnan SpA v Feed Products Ltd ChD 1987
An agreement can be enforceable as an agreement on main terms only, with the detailed terms to be agreed later. Bingham J said: ‘The Court’s task is to review what the parties said and did and from that material to infer whether the parties’ . .
Cited – Edmonds v Lawson, Pardoe, and Del Fabbro CA 10-Mar-2000
A contract of apprenticeship is synallagmatic. The master undertakes to educate and train the apprentice (or pupil) in the practical and other skills needed to practise a skilled trade (or learned profession) and the apprentice (or pupil) binds . .
Cited – Doncaster Pharmaceuticals Group Ltd and Others v The Bolton Pharmaceutical Company 100 Ltd CA 26-May-2006
Appeals were made against interlocutory injunctions for alleged trade mark infringement.
Held: The court should hesitate about making a final decision for summary judgment without a trial, even where there is no obvious conflict of fact at the . .
Cited – Swain v Hillman CA 21-Oct-1999
Strike out – Realistic Not Fanciful Chance Needed
The proper test for whether an action should be struck out under the new Rules was whether it had a realistic as opposed to a fanciful prospect of success. There was no justification for further attempts to explain the meaning of what are clear . .
Cited – E D and F Man Liquid Products Ltd v Patel and Another CA 4-Apr-2003
The rules contained two occasions on which a court would consider dismissal of a claim as having ‘no real prospect’ of success.
Held: The only significant difference between CPR 24.2 and 13.3(1), is that under the first the overall burden of . .
Cited – The Royal Brompton Hospital National Health Service Trust v Hammond and Others (No 5) CA 11-Apr-2001
When looking at an application to strike out a claim, the normal ‘balance of probabilities’ standard of proof did not apply. It was the court’s task to assess whether, even if supplemented by evidence at trial, the claimant’s claim was bound to fail . .
Cited – G Percy Trentham Ltd v Archital Luxfer Ltd CA 1993
The court discussed how it should approach the task of establishing whether a contract had been made.
Steyn LJ said: ‘Before I turn to the facts it is important to consider briefly the approach to be adopted to the issue of contract formation . .
Cited – Judge v Crown Leisure Ltd CA 21-Apr-2005
The claimant appealed against dismissal at the ET and EAT of his claim for constructive dismissal. The court considered whether the employer had made a promise to the employee.
Held: Smith LJ said: ‘In my view, with respect, [the claimant’s . .
Cited – RTS Flexible Systems Ltd v Molkerei Alois Muller Gmbh and Company Kg (UK Production) SC 10-Mar-2010
The parties had reached agreement in outline and sought to have the contract formalised, but went ahead anyway. They now disputed whether an agreement had been created and as to its terms if so.
Held: It was unrealistic to suggest that no . .
Cited – Stilk v Myrick KBD 16-Dec-1809
No Obligation Incurred without Consideration
The plaintiff agreed to sail with the defendant on a voyage being paid pounds 5.00 a month. Two crew deserted and the captain asked the remainder to do their work sharing the wages saved. The plaintiff sought the additional sum above the articled . .
Cited – Horwood and Others v Land of Leather Ltd and Others ComC 18-Mar-2010
The claimants sought to claim for personal injuries against the defendant company, now in administration, and their insurers using the 1930 Act. The insurers said they were not liable to indemnify the company. The parties disputed the standing of an . .
Cited – Williams v Roffey Brothers and Nicholls (Contractors) Ltd CA 23-Nov-1989
The defendant subcontracted some of its work under a building contract to the plaintiff at a price which left him in financial difficulty and there was a risk that the work would not be completed by the plaintiff. The defendant agreed to make . .
Cited – Lee and others v GEC Plessey Telecommunications 1993
The court was asked whether consideration had been given for a change in the employees’ terms and conditions.
Held: Where improvements in employee contracts are announced by an employer in the context of pay negotiations, the employees’ . .
Cited – Clark v Nomura International plc 2000
clark_nomura2000
Mr Clark was dismissed on three months’ notice and, although he was paid his basic salary for that period and was still in employment at the date for payment of the annual bonus, he was not paid a bonus. He had earned substantial profits for the . .
Cited – Cantor Fitzgerald International v Horkulak CA 14-Oct-2004
The employee claimed under a bonus clause which ‘contained in a contract of employment in a high earning and competitive activity in which the payment of discretionary bonuses is part of the remuneration structure of employers.’
Held: The . .
Cited – Steria Ltd and others v Hutchison and others CA 24-Nov-2006
Neuberger LJ observed that estoppels are relied on because of difficulties in establishing a contract; and, since unconscionability is the single factor that must be established for an estoppel and views on unconscionability may vary, it is . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment, Contract
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.416607
Massey worked as Crown Life’s manager under 2 contracts, one a contract of employment, the other a contract of general agency. Tax and other contributions were deducted from wages paid under the former, while commission was paid under the agency contract. Under the agency contract Massey could work for other insurance brokers. Later, with Crown Life’s agreement, Massey registered himself as Massey and Associates and, trading under such name, entered into a new contract as a self-employed person with Crown Life in 1973. Massey’s duties under the new contract remained the same, although tax and other contributions were no longer deducted from monies paid to him. The company said that he was an independent contractor, not an employee. He had in law been an employee, but at his own request had been treated as self employed. He failed at the tribunal.
Held: Massey’s appealwas dismissed. The deed prepared by the plaintiff and accepted by the company was entered into freely and was clear. He was not an employee and had no right not to be dismissed unfairly.
Lawton LJ said: ‘In the administration of justice the union of fairness, commonsense and the law is a highly desirable objective. If the law allows a man to claim that he is a self-employed person in order to obtain tax advantages for himself and then allows him to deny that he is a self-employed person so that he can claim compensation, then in my judgment the union between fairness, commonsense and the law is strained almost to breaking point. The applicant is asking this court to adjudge that he is entitled to make claims with two different voices.’
Lord Denning MR said: ‘The law, as I see it, is this: If the true relationship of the parties is that of master and servant under a contract of service, the parties cannot alter the truth of that relationship by putting a different label upon it. If they should put a different label upon it and use it as a dishonest device to deceive the Revenue, I should have thought it was illegal and could not be enforced by either party and they could not get any advantage out of it – at any rate not in any case where they had to rely upon it as the basis of a claim. See Alexander v. Rayson (1936) 1 King’s Bench 169. An arrangement between two parties to put forward a dishonest description of their relationship so as to deceive the Revenue would clearly be illegal and unenforceable.
On the other hand, if their relationship is ambiguous and is capable of being one or the other, then the parties can remove that ambiguity, by the very agreement itself which they make with one another. The agreement itself then becomes the best material from which to gather the true legal relationship between them.’
Lord Denning MR, Lawton LJ, Eveleigh LJ
[1977] EWCA Civ 12, [1978] 1 WLR 676, [1978] ICR 590
Bailii
Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974 30(1)
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Stevenson v MacDonald 1952
Denning J described the difference between a contract of service and a contract for services: ‘It is often easy to recognise a contract of service when you see it, but difficult to say wherein the difference lies. A ship’s master, a chauffeur, and a . .
Cited – Ready Mixed Concrete Southeast Ltd v Minister of Pensions and National Insurance QBD 8-Dec-1967
Contracts of service or for services
In three cases appeals were heard against a finding as to whether a worker was entitled to have his employer pay National Insurance contributions on his behalf which would apply if he were an employee. He worked as an ‘owner-driver’
Held: The . .
Cited – Alexander v Rayson CA 1936
The action was for arrears of rent. The evidence at trial was that the plaintiff granted a lease to the defendant at a rent of andpound;1200 and contracted that certain services in connection with the flat would be performed. The plaintiff sent the . .
Cited – David v New England College of Arundel 1977
. .
Cited – Construction Industry Training Board v Labour Force QBD 1970
In this industrial training levy case there was an appeal on a point of law against the imposition of the levy on a company, Labour Force Limited, which was engaged in the supply of labour to contractors in the construction industry, but not as an . .
Cited – Maurice Graham Ltd v Brunswick 1974
It is impossible to draw up a complete list of criteria to be considered when deciding whether a contract is one of employment or one for services . .
Cited – Global Plant Ltd v Secretary of State for Social Services 1972
Lord Widgery said: ‘One must not overlook that the intention of the parties was that the relationship should be that of an independent contractor, and although the parties cannot by intention make a transaction into something which it is not, yet it . .
Cited – Inland Revenue Commissioners v Duke of Westminster HL 7-May-1935
The Duke’s gardener was paid weekly, but to reduce tax, his solicitors drew up a deed in which it was said that the earnings were not really wages, but were an annual payment payable by weekly instalments.
Held: To find out what the true . .
Cited – Ferguson v John Dawson and Partners (Contractors) Ltd CA 22-Jul-1976
The plaintiff had fallen from a roof whilst working for the defendants, and had claimed damages for breach of statutory duty. The parties disputed whether the plaintiff was an employee or a self-employed independent contractor.
Held: The real . .
Cited by:
Cited – Ansell Computer Services Ltd v HM Inspector of Taxes SCIT 29-Jul-2004
SCIT National insurance – earnings of workers supplied by service companies etc. – provision of services through intermediary – worker establishing information technology company – company contracting with agency . .
Cited – Lambden v Henley Rugby Football Club and Another EAT 29-May-2009
lambden_henlryrfcEAT2009
EAT CONTRACT OF EMPLOYMENT: Whether established
The Claimant was a part time Rugby Coach. The Employment Tribunal found that he had freely elected to be paid as an independent contractor though a limited . .
Cited – Young and Woods Ltd v West CA 11-Feb-1980
The applicant had complained of unfair dismissal.The employment contract had been dressed as a self employed service provider’s contract to privide him with tax, and was unlawfully so. The employer appealed, saying that as an unlawful contract, the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Employment
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.250992
Parties had entered into a bunker supply contract which contained a retention of title clause in favour of the supplier. It purported to allow the buyer to use the goods before title came to be passed.
Held: The owner’s appeal failed. It did not fall within the scope of the 1979 Act, and therefore the buyer could not rely on section 49 to withhold payment in the event that valid title was not passed.
Held: The owner’s appeal failed. The Court was being asked three questions:
Was the contract a contract of sale within section 2 of the 1979 Act. If not, then was OWB obliged via an implied term to perform is obligations by paying timeously, and third, was Wilson to be overruled.
Held: ‘ on the assumed facts:
(i) the contract between OWBM and the Owners was not one of sale, but sui generis;
(ii) that it was not subject to any such implied term or terms, regarding performance by OWBM (or OWBAS) of any supply contract higher up the chain, as the Owners have alleged – though it was no doubt subject to an implied promise by OWBM that OWBM was entitled (in consequence of whatever were the arrangements under which the bunkers had been obtained directly or indirectly from whoever was interested in them) to supply them to the Owners on terms permitting their use for the propulsion of the vessel before payment; and
(iii) that the Owners have no defence to OWBM’s claim to the agreed price.’
Lord Neuberger, President, Lord Mance, Lord Clarke, Lord Hughes, Lord Toulson
[2016] UKSC 23, [2016] AC 1034, [2016] 2 WLR 1193, [2016] 3 All ER 879, [2017] 1 All ER (Comm) 1, [2016] WLR(D) 257, [2016] BPIR 973, [2016] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 589
Bailii, Bailii Summary
Sale of Goods Act 1979 49
England and Wales
Citing:
At ComC – PST Energy 7 Shipping Llc and Another v OW Bunker Malta Ltd and Another (Res Cogitans) ComC 14-Jul-2015
The OW Bunker Group had gone into insolvency. Purchasers from them were no concerned at the possibility, under the industry standard tersm, of having to pay twice.
Held: The owners’ appeal from the arbitration award failed.
The court . .
At CA – PST Energy 7 Shipping Llc Product Shipping and Trading SA v OW Bunker Malta Ltd and Others CA 22-Oct-2015
The oil owners had contracted for its transport with OWBM aboard Res Cogitans under standard terms which would allow the captain to use the oil for navigation before transfer of the title in the oil. The court was now asked whether the agreement . .
Cited – Borden (UK) Ltd v Scottish Timber Products Ltd CA 1979
The plaintiff sold a quantity of resin to the defendant for use in the manufacture of chipboard. The contract contained a reservation of title clause, but both parties contemplated that the resin would be used in the process of production before it . .
Cited – Harry and Garry Ltd v Jariwalla CA 1988
English buyers, Harry and Garry, had under contracts of sale received a quantity of sarees which they found defective and in respect of which they had not yet accepted the relevant bills of exchange, by reference to which, it appeared, the Indian . .
Cited – Armour v Thyssen Edelstahlwerke AG HL 1990
The defendant supplied steel to a manufacturing company under a contract which contained a retention of title clause. The contract was governed by German law. The plaintiffs, who had been appointed as receivers, brought proceedings against the . .
Cited – Forsythe International (UK) Limited v Silver Shipping Co Limited and Others 1993
Delivery under section 24 requires a voluntary act by the person in possession because by section 61(1) of the 1979 Act, unless the context or subject matter otherwise requires, `delivery’ means `voluntary transfer from one person to another’. . .
Cited – Chaigley Farms Ltd v Crawford, Kaye and Grayshire Ltd 1996
The Court was asked as to the title to livestock delivered by the plaintiff farmers to an abattoir under a contract containing a retention of title clause and title to the carcasses following slaughter. One question which arose was whether the . .
Cited – Otis Vehicle Rentals Ltd v Cicely Commercials Ltd CA 30-Jan-2002
Leave to appeal . .
Cited – Caterpillar (NI) Ltd v John Holt and Company (Liverpool) Ltd CA 17-Oct-2013
The defendant (Holt) appealed against the grant of summary judgement given against it in a claim for non-payment of sums due under a distributorship agreement with the claimants. Goods had been agreed to be sold and were delivered by F G Wilson to . .
Cited – Angara Maritime Ltd v Oceanconnect UK Ltd and Another QBD 29-Mar-2010
The court was asked as to the application of Section 25(1) of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 when an unpaid supplier of bunkers to a time charterer claims against the owner of the vessel.
Held: The issue was whether as a matter of fact there was a . .
Cited – Stoneleigh Finance Ltd v Phillips CA 1965
The court was asked whether what purported to be a contract for the hire purchase of certain trucks was in truth an unregistered bill of sale over the trucks thereby disentitling the finance company from taking possession of the vehicles upon the . .
Cited – Otis Vehicle Rentals Ltd v Ciceley Commercials Ltd CA 12-Jul-2002
. .
Cited – Atkinson And Others, Assignees Of Sleddon, v Bell And Others 1828
A. having a patent for certain spinning machinery, received an order
from B. to have some spinning frames made for him. A. employed C. to make
the machines for B., and informed the fatter that he had so done. After the
machines had been . .
Cited – Laird v Pim and Another 18-Jan-1841
Where a party has been let into possession of lands under a contract of purchase, but does not complete the purchase, and refuses to pay the purchase-money, and no conveyance is executed, the vendors cannot recover from him the whole amount of the . .
Cited – Dunlop And Others v Grote And Booker 23-Aug-1845
The plaintiffs declared on a contract by the defendants to purchase certain iron of the plaintiff alleging a promise by the defendants, ‘that, if the delivery of the said iron should riot be required by the defendants on or before the 30th day of . .
Cited – Martineau v Kitching QBD 3-May-1872
Sugar was agreed to be sold, with the price payable ‘Prompt at one month; goods at seller’s risk for two months’, to be kept at the seller’s premises and drawn down by the buyers as wanted. After two months and after only some of the sugar had been . .
Cited – Castle v Playford Cexc 1872
The contract for the sale of ice was for cash on delivery at the rate of 20s a ton as weighed on arrival and delivery in the United Kingdom, but it was agreed that the buyer should ‘take upon himself all risks and dangers of the seas’. The vessel . .
Cited – Stein Forbes and Co v County Tailoring Co 1916
Atkin J said: ‘I doubt whether goods are appropriated unconditionally if the seller does not mean the buyer to have them unless he pays for them.’ The overriding question is whether the intention of the parties appears in the course of the making . .
Cited – Colley v Overseas Exporters 1921
Sellers brought an action for the price of goods sold on terms fob Liverpool. The buyers made five successive nominations of vessels to take delivery of the cargo but in each case the vessel was eventually unable to take the goods. No effective . .
Cited – Muller, Maclean and Co v Leslie and Anderson 1921
. .
Cited – Sempra Metals Ltd v Inland Revenue Commissioners and Another HL 18-Jul-2007
The parties agreed that damages were payable in an action for restitution, but the sum depended upon to a calculation of interest. They disputed whether such interest should be calculated on a simple or compound basis. The company sought compound . .
Cited – Plaimar Ltd v Waters Trading Co Ltd 23-Nov-1945
(High Court of Australia) it was wrong for judgment to be given for the price because ‘[t]he contract did not provide for payment for the goods on a day certain.’ . .
Cited – Minister for Supply and Development v Servicemen’s Co-operative Joinery Manufacturers Ltd 26-Apr-1951
High Court of Australia – Sale of Goods – Passing of property – Specific goods in deliverable condition – Purchaser in possession of goods as bailee – Contract of sale requiring ‘net cash before delivery’ – Seller’s right of action for price though . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Transport, Insolvency, Contract
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.563295
The parties had agreed a charterparty. The ship was to sail to Haiphong to load a cargo for delivery in Europe. The charterer had a right to cancel if the vessel was not ready on a certain date, but a few days earlier they repudiated the charter. The vessel would not have been ready in any event.
Held: The charter would have been cancelled, and the owners would have been entitled only to nominal damages. The first issue was whether the ‘expected readiness’ clause was a condition of which the owners were in breach, entitling the charterers to terminate the charter contract. This was decided in favour of the charterers and against the owners. The second issue was whether (if the answer to the first issue was wrong) the charterers had repudiated the contract by cancelling three days before the specified deadline.
Held: Lord Denning held that they had not, but Edmund Davies and Megaw LJJ held that they had.
The court then asked as to the damage suffered by the owners, on the assumption that the charterers’ premature cancellation had been a repudiation. Lord Denning upheld the arbitrator’s finding that they had suffered no damage, saying ‘Seeing that the charterers would, beyond doubt, have cancelled, I am clearly of opinion that the shipowners suffered no loss: and would be entitled at most to nominal damages.’ Edmund-Davies LJ agreed: ‘One must look at the contract as a whole, and if it is clear that the innocent party has lost nothing, he should recover no more than nominal damages for the loss of his right to have the whole contract completed.’
Megaw LJ said: ‘In my view, where there is an anticipatory breach of contract, the breach is the repudiation once it has been accepted, and the other party is entitled to recover by way of damages the true value of the contractual rights which he has thereby lost; subject to his duty to mitigate. If the contractual rights which he has lost were capable by the terms of the contract of being rendered either less valuable or valueless in certain events, and if it can be shown that those events were, at the date of acceptance of the repudiation, predestined to happen, then in my view the damages which he can recover are not more than the true value, if any, of the rights which he has lost, having regard to those predestined events.’
Megaw LJ, Lord Denning MR, Edmund Davies LJ
[1971] 1 QB 164, [1970] EWCA Civ 4, [1970] 3 WLR 601, [1970] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 43, [1970] 3 All ER 125
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Golden Strait Corporation v Nippon Yusen Kubishika Kaisha; ‘the Golden Victory’ TCC 15-Feb-2005
The parties had agreed a charterparty. The defendant repudiated the charter, but the Gulf War in 2003 meant that the the contract would have been frustrated in any event shortly afterwards.
Held: The assessment of damages for repudiation of a . .
Applied – Woodstock Shipping Co v Kyma Compania Naviera SA (‘The Wave’) 1981
There was a time charter for 24 months, 3 months more or less at charterers’ option. The owners repudiated the charter and the charterers accepted their repudiation on 2 August 1979.
Held: Assessing the charterers’ loss, and allowing for their . .
Cited – Golden Strait Corporation v Nippon Yusen Kubishka Kaisha (‘The Golden Victory’) HL 28-Mar-2007
The claimant sought damages for repudiation of a charterparty. The charterpary had been intended to continue until 2005. The charterer repudiated the contract and that repudiation was accepted, but before the arbitrator could set his award, the Iraq . .
Approved (Megaw LJ) – SIB International SRL v Metallgesellschaft Corporation (‘The Noel Bay’) CA 1989
The Noel Bay was let on a charterparty to carry oil between ports in Europe, with demurrage provisions. The owners treated the charterer’s failure to nominate a port, as a repudiation. The owners found alternative employment for the ship and sought . .
Approved (Megaw LJ) – North Sea Energy Holdings Nv (Formerly Midland and Scottish Holdings Nv) v Petroleum Authority of Thailand CA 16-Dec-1998
The buyers repudiated an oil purchase agreement and the sellers accepted their repudiation. The sellers could not show that they would have been able to obtain the oil to sell.
Held: They were not entitled to substantial damages. . .
Examined, Megaw LJ discounted – B S and N Limited (BVI) v Micado Shipping Limited (Malta) (‘The Seaflower’) 19-Apr-2000
A time charterparty was dated 20 October 1997 for a period of 11 months, maximum 12 months at charterers’ option. It referred to various major oil company approvals, including that of Mobil, all on the point of expiring, and provided that if, during . .
Cited – Jet2Com Ltd v SC Compania Nationala De Transporturi Aeriene Romane Tarom Sa ComC 15-Mar-2012
The parties had contracted for the defendant to maintain certain of the claimant’s aircraft. Each now asserted breach by the other.
Held: Neither the terms of the contract nor its character made time of the essence for the payments to be made . .
Cited – Bunge Sa v Nidera Bv SC 1-Jul-2015
The court considered the effect of the default clause in a standard form of contract which is widely used in the grain trade. On 10 June 2010 the respondents, Nidera BV, whom I shall call ‘the buyers’, entered into a contract with the appellants, . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Damages
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.223464
The buyer suppied a food formula to a food mixer and claimed damages when the food mix injured his mink. The defendant argued that the level of damages sought exceeded that expectations of the parties when the contract was entered into.
Held: The fact that the extent of the loss occasioned by a breach was greater than anticipated by the parties when entering into the contract is not relevant when assessing whether the damages are claimable. The test for remoteness does not require the claimant to show that contract breaker ought to have contemplated as being not unlikely the actual extent of the loss that occurred. The court is entitled to look at: ‘such knowledge and information as (the contract breaker), as reasonable men, experienced in its trade, should have had and should have brought to bear in its contemplation.’
Davies LJ said: ‘the party who has suffered damage does not have to show that the contract breaker ought to have contemplated as being not unlikely, the precise detail of the damage or the precise manner of its happening. It is enough if he should have contemplated damage of that kind is not unlikely.’
Davies LJ
[1969] 3 All ER 1496
Sale of Goods Act 1893 14(1)
England and Wales
Cited by:
Appeal from – Christopher Hill Ltd v Ashington Piggeries Ltd HL 1972
Mink farmers had asked a compounder of animal foods to make up mink food to a supplied formula.
Held: There was reliance as to the suitability of the ingredients only.
Lord Diplock said: ‘Unless the Sale of Goods Act 1893 is to be allowed . .
Cited – Transfield Shipping Inc of Panama v Mercator Shipping Inc of Monrovia ComC 1-Dec-2006
The owners made substantial losses after the charterers breached the contract by failing to redliver the ship on time as agreed.
Held: On the facts found the Owners’ primary claim is not too remote. To the knowledge of the Charterers, it was . .
Cited – Shah and Another v HSBC Private Bank (UK) Ltd QBD 26-Jan-2009
The claimants sought damages after delays by the bank in processing transfer requests. The bank said that the delays were made pending reports of suspected criminal activity. The bank’s delay had stigmatised the claimant causing further losses. The . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Damages
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.246739
The claimant, a private investigator had contracted with the News of the World owned by the defendant but since closed. He had committed criminal offences in providing information for the paper, had been convicted and had served his sentence. He said that he had an agreement with the defendant that they would indemnify him against civil claims both as to costs and damages. They had done so, but when pressed by a Select Committee had said they would not do so further. The defendant now said that there had been no contract since their offer had been rejected by a counter offer made by the claimant as to the provision of further information, and furthermore was unlawful.
Held: His claim succeeded. Both parties had acted for some time on the basis that a contract of indemnity was in place. The offer had not required his signature for acceptance. The issue of the information was not one governed by the offer, and were collateral. The rule against claiming an indemnity against one’s own criminal conduct does not apply where the acts have already occurred.
Morritt J Ch
[2011] EWHC 3469 (Ch), [2012] Ch 435, [2012] 2 WLR 831
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Hyde v Wrench ChD 8-Dec-1840
The defendant offered to sell his land to the plaintiff for andpound;1000. The plaintiff counter-offered andpound;950, which was rejected. The plaintiff then said that he accepted the original offer.
Held: Lord Langdale MR said: ‘there exists . .
Cited – Agbaje v Akinnoye-Agbaje SC 10-Mar-2010
The parties had divorced in Nigeria, but the former wife now sought relief in the UK under section 10 of the 194 Act. The wife said that she lived here, but the order made in Nigeria was severely detrimental requiring her either to live here in . .
Applied – RTS Flexible Systems Ltd v Molkerei Alois Muller Gmbh and Company Kg (UK Production) SC 10-Mar-2010
The parties had reached agreement in outline and sought to have the contract formalised, but went ahead anyway. They now disputed whether an agreement had been created and as to its terms if so.
Held: It was unrealistic to suggest that no . .
Cited – In Re Spenborough Urban District Council’s agreement; Spenborough Corporation v Cooke Sons and Company Ltd ChD 1968
A contract regulating the flow of industrial effluents into a public sewer contained no power of termination notwithstanding that the agreement it replaced did.
Held: There is no presumption in law that a joint venture is not terminable.
Cited – Attorney General of Belize and others v Belize Telecom Ltd and Another PC 18-Mar-2009
(Belize) A company had been formed to manage telecommunications in Belize. The parties disputed the interpretation of its articles. Shares had been sold, but the company was structured so as to leave a degree of control with the government. It was . .
Cited – Hardy v Motor Insurers’ Bureau CA 1964
The court was asked whether insurance pursuant to the Road Traffic Act 1960 would provide valid cover for the benefit of a third party injured by deliberately criminal conduct on the part of the driver.
Held: Diplock LJ said: ‘The rule of law . .
Cited – Lancashire County Council v Municipal Mutual Insurance Ltd CA 3-Apr-1996
The defendant agreed to indemnify the insured ‘in respect of all sums which the insured shall become legally liable to pay as compensation arising out of’ various matters including wrongful arrest, malicious prosecution and false imprisonment. The . .
Cited – Churchill Insurance v Charlton CA 2-Feb-2001
The victim of an unlawful act of a driver off-road sought damages from another driver and his insurers. The insurers refused to pay.
Held: There is a balance to be found between the statutory purpose of compulsory motor insurance and the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.450247
The plaintiffs sold aluminium to the defendant and by a clause in the contract retained their title in the materials sold until payment was received. The purchaser went into insolvent receivership, and the seller sought recovery of the equipment and proceeds of sale of articles made from the materials. The defendants allowed that they had been bailees of the material supplied by the plaintiffs until all debts were paid, but claimed that this was overridden by sales to bona fide purchasers.
Held: The clause showed an intention to create a fiduciary arrangement between seller and buyer, and the plaintiffs were entitled to recover the proceeds of sales to third parties.
Mocatta J
[1976] 1 WLR 676
lip
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – King v Hutton CA 1900
‘The most compelling indicator for or against a trusteeship of an agent’s receipts is the nature of the account agreed to be kept by the agent with his principal. If, after each individual transaction or group of related transactions he effects for . .
Cited – Henry v Hammond KBD 1913
Channell J said: ‘It is clear that if the terms upon which the person receives the money are that he is bound to keep it separate, either in a bank or elsewhere, and to hand that money so kept as a separate fund to the person entitled to it, then he . .
Cited – In re Hallett’s Estate; Knatchbull v Hallett CA 1880
Where a trustee of a policy used money received from others to make payment of premiums on an insurance policy, they would be entitled to a lien on the policy. Where an asset was acquired exclusively with trust money, the beneficiary could either . .
Cited – In re Diplock’s estate CA 1948
After considering a situation in which trust money had been applied in making alterations to the property of an innocent third party but had not added to the value of the property,
Held: The origin of the equitable rules of tracing were . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Company, Contract, Insolvency, Equity
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.174718
The court considered a claim by a hire-purchase company for the return of a vehicle. The bailee said the agreement was a sham.
Held: The word ‘sham’ should only be used to describe an act or document where the parties have a common intention that the act or document is not to create the legal relations and obligations which it purports to create.
Diplock LJ said: ‘As regards the contention of the plaintiff that the transactions between himself, Auto-Finance Ltd and the defendants were a ‘sham’, it is, I think, necessary to consider what, if any, legal concept is involved in the use of this popular and pejorative word. I apprehend that, if it has any meaning in law, it means acts done or documents executed by the parties to the ‘sham’ which are intended by them to give to third parties or to the court the appearance of creating between the parties legal rights and obligations different from the actual legal rights and obligations (if any) which the parties intend to create. But one thing I think, however, is clear in legal principle, morality and the authorities . . that for acts or documents to be a ‘sham’, with whatever legal consequences follow from this, all the parties thereto must have a common intention that the acts or documents are not to create the legal rights and obligations which they give the appearance of creating. No unexpressed intentions of a ‘shammer’ affect the rights of a party whom he deceived.’
Diplock LJ
[1967] 2 QB 786, [1967] 1 All ER 518, [1967] 2 WLR 1020
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Yorkshire Railway Wagon Co v Maclure CA 1882
. .
Cited – Stoneleigh Finance Ltd v Phillips CA 1965
The court was asked whether what purported to be a contract for the hire purchase of certain trucks was in truth an unregistered bill of sale over the trucks thereby disentitling the finance company from taking possession of the vehicles upon the . .
Cited by:
Cited – J J Coughlan Ltd v Ruparelia and others CA 21-Jul-2003
The defendant firm of solicitors had acted in a matter involving a fraud. One partner was involved in the fraud. The claimants sought to recover from the partnership.
Held: ‘The issue is not how the transaction ought properly to be described, . .
Considered – Sturolson v Weniz CA 1984
The plaintiffs took occupation under an agreement which purported to grant a non exclusive right of possession of the flat, and to be personal. Occupation could only be shared with persons approved in advance by L. L’s agent had said the agreement . .
Cited – Norglen Ltd (In Liquidation) v Reeds Rains Prudential Ltd and Others; Circuit Systems Ltd (In Liquidation) and Another v Zuken-Redac HL 1-Dec-1997
An assignment of a cause of action by a company in liquidation was valid, even though the dominant purpose was to avoid having to give security for costs, and to get legal aid. In dismissing the argument that the transactions were a device to defeat . .
Cited – Englewood Properties Limited v Patel and Another ChD 16-Feb-2005
The claimant was a property developer, which sought to sell a row of shops at auction. One lot was a Woolworths store, where the company owned both freehold and leasehold interests, with Woolworths occupying an underlease, which the claimant had . .
Cited – Regina v Stannard CACD 1-Nov-2005
The defendant had been convicted of offences in which he had operated to purchase companies and use false debentures to evade corporation tax. Compensation had been sought under the 1988 Act. It was argued that the confiscation order should be . .
Dictum approved – A G Securities v Vaughan; Antoniades v Villiers and Bridger HL 10-Nov-1988
In Antoniades, the two tenants occupied an attic, living together. Each had at the same time signed identical agreements purporting to create licences. The landlord had reserved to himself the right to occupy the property and to allow others to . .
Cited – Collier v Collier CA 30-Jul-2002
Fraudulent Intent Negated Trust
The daughter claimant sought possession of business premises from her father who held them under leases. He claimed an order that the property was held in trust for him. The judge that at the time the properties were conveyed, the father had been . .
Cited – Bankway Properties Ltd v Penfold-Dunsford and Another CA 24-Apr-2001
A grant of an assured tenancy included a clause under which the rent would be increased from pounds 4,680, to pounds 25,000 per year. It was expected that the tenant would be reliant upon Housing Benefit to pay the rent, and that Housing Benefit . .
Cited – Crancour Ltd v Da Silvaesa and Another CA 26-Feb-1986
The plaintiff sought possession of two rooms in a house occupied by the defendants separately. The agreements stated that they were licences. The agreements excluded the occupiers between 10:30am and noon on each day. The occupiers claimed to be . .
Cited – Revenue and Customs v Dempster (T/A Boulevard) ChD 24-Jan-2008
The revenue wished to refuse a claim to set off input tax for two transactions involving the alleged purchase of software. They said the transactions were a sham.
Held: The revenue’s appeal failed.
Briggs J said: ‘the critical question . .
Cited – Midland Bank Trust Co Ltd v Green (No 1) HL 11-Dec-1980
A father had granted an option over land to his son, but it had not been registered. The father later tried to frustrate the option by conveying the land to his wife for 500 pounds. The land was worth 40,000 pounds. When the son found out about it, . .
Cited – Total Network Sl v Revenue and Customs HL 12-Mar-2008
The House was asked whether an action for unlawful means conspiracy was available against a participant in a missing trader intra-community, or carousel, fraud. The company appealed a finding of liability saying that the VAT Act and Regulations . .
Cited – Launahurst Ltd v Larner EAT 18-Aug-2009
EAT JURISDICTIONAL POINTS: Worker, employee or neither
For 13 years the Claimant worked installing double glazing for the Respondent. In 2004 he signed a ‘contract supply agreement’ though matters continued . .
Cited – Autoclenz Ltd v Belcher and Others CA 13-Oct-2009
Car Valeters contracts misdescribed their Duties
The claimants worked cleaning cars for the appellants. They said that as workers they were entitled to holiday pay. The appellant said they were self-employed.
Held: The contract purported to give rights which were not genuine, and the . .
Cited – Autoclenz Ltd v Belcher and Others SC 27-Jul-2011
Car Cleaning nil-hours Contractors were Workers
The company contracted with the claimants to work cleaning cars. The company appealed against a finding that contrary to the explicit provisions of the contracts, they were workers within the Regulations and entitled to holiday pay and associated . .
Cited – UBS Ag and Another v Revenue and Customs SC 9-Mar-2016
UBS AG devised an employee bonus scheme to take advantage of the provisions of Chapter 2 of the 2003 Act, with the sole purpose other than tax avoidance, and such consequential advantages as would flow from tax avoidance. Several pre-ordained steps . .
Cited – Uber Bv and Others v Aslam and Others CA 19-Dec-2018
Uber drivers are workers
The claimant Uber drivers sought the status of workers, allowing them to claim the associated statutory employment benefits. The company now appealed from a finding that they were workers.
Held: The appeal failed (Underhill LJ dissenting) The . .
Cited – Ben Hashem v Ali Shayif and Another FD 22-Sep-2008
The court was asked to pierce the veil of incorporation of a company in the course of ancillary relief proceedings in a divorce. H had failed to co-operate with the court.
After a comprehensive review of all the authorities, Munby J said: ‘The . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.186091
The defendant subcontracted some of its work under a building contract to the plaintiff at a price which left him in financial difficulty and there was a risk that the work would not be completed by the plaintiff. The defendant agreed to make additional payments to the plaintiff in return for his promise to carry out his existing obligations. The plaintiff sued for payment under the original agreement and the further agreement. The defendant argued that its promise to make additional payments was unenforceable, having been made under commercial duress.
Held: The rule in Pinnell’s Case does not apply where the debt arises from the provision of services. A promise to perform an existing obligation can amount to good consideration provided that there are practical benefits to the promisee – an expectation of commercial advantage was good consideration.
Glidewell LJ said: ‘(i) if A has entered into a contract with B to do work for, or to supply goods or services to, B in return for payment by B and (ii) at some stage before A has completely performed his obligations under the contract B has reason to doubt whether A will, or will be able to, complete his side of the bargain and (iii) B thereupon promises A an additional payment in return for A’s promise to perform his contractual obligations on time and (iv) as a result of giving his promise B obtains in practice a benefit, or obviates a disbenefit, and (v) B’s promise is not given as a result of economic duress or fraud on the part of A, then (vi) the benefit to B is capable of being consideration for B’s promise, so that the promise will be legally binding.’
Glidewell, Purchas and Russell LJJ
[1989] EWCA Civ 5, [1991] 1 QB 1, 10 Tr LR 12, [1990] 2 WLR 1153, (1991) 48 BLR 69, [1990] 1 All ER 512
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Pinnel’s Case, Penny v Core CCP 1602
Payment of Lesser Sum Not Satisfaction
(Court of Common Pleas) The payment of a lesser sum on the day in satisfaction of a greater, cannot be any satisfaction for the whole. The gift of a horse, hawk, robe, etc., in satisfaction, is good. Payment of part before the day and acceptance may . .
Cited – Stilk v Myrick KBD 16-Dec-1809
No Obligation Incurred without Consideration
The plaintiff agreed to sail with the defendant on a voyage being paid pounds 5.00 a month. Two crew deserted and the captain asked the remainder to do their work sharing the wages saved. The plaintiff sought the additional sum above the articled . .
Cited – Foakes v Beer HL 16-May-1884
Mrs Beer had obtained judgment against Dr Foakes for andpound;2,090 19s. He asked for time to pay and they agreed with him, acknowledging the debt, and paying part immediately and undertaking to pay the balance over a period of time. In . .
Cited by:
Not followed – In Re Selectmove Ltd CA 21-Dec-1993
Promisse to Pay Tax due is not Consideration
The company appealed against an order for its winding up, saying that the debt was disputed, an accomodation having been reached with the Revenue.
Held: The court declined to regard a promise to the Revenue by a company to pay its existing . .
Cited – Collier v P and M J Wright (Holdings) Ltd CA 14-Dec-2007
Agreement for payment by joint debtor not contract
The claimant appealed against refusal of an order to set aside a statutory demand. He said that he had compromised a claim by the creditors. He argued for an extension to the Rule in Pinnel’s case, so that where a debtor agrees to pay part of a . .
Cited – Horwood and Others v Land of Leather Ltd and Others ComC 18-Mar-2010
The claimants sought to claim for personal injuries against the defendant company, now in administration, and their insurers using the 1930 Act. The insurers said they were not liable to indemnify the company. The parties disputed the standing of an . .
Cited – Parties Named In Schedule A v Dresdner Kleinwort Ltd and Another QBD 28-May-2010
The defendant merchant banks resisted two group claims for annual bonuses for 2008 made by the employee claimants. They now sought summary judgment against the claims. The employer had declared a guaranteed minimum bonus pool available to make the . .
Cited – Adam Opel Gmbh and Another v Mitras Automotive (UK) Ltd QBD 18-Dec-2007
The parties had agreed for the supply of automotive parts by the defendant to the claimant under a sole supply arrangement. None were in fact ordered for the first few years. The manufacturer then changed its design and made a new arrangement with a . .
Cited – Regency Villas Title Ltd and Others v Diamond Resorts (Europe) Ltd and Another ChD 7-Dec-2015
Claim by time share owners for easements over neighbouring land. The easements were for various sporting rights and facilities.
Held: The Claimants were entitled to appropriate declaratory relief confirming that they have the rights they claim . .
Cited – Regency Villas Title Ltd and Others v Diamond Resorts (Europe) Ltd and Another CA 4-Apr-2017
Can a recreational purpose underlie an easement
The court considered the validity of easements of recreational facilities. A property had been developed with timeshare leases within a substantial and attractive grounds area. Later a second development was created but with freehold interests, but . .
Cited – Rock Advertising Ltd v MWB Business Exchange Centres Ltd SC 16-May-2018
The parties disputed whether a contract (licence to occupy an office) had been varied by an oral agreement, where the terms prohibited such.
Held: The ‘no oral variation’ clause applied. Such clauses were in common commercial use and served a . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.259379
The parties, the plaintiff who was the equitable assignee of performing rights and the infringing defendant, joined specific issue on the absence of the legal owner of the rights.
Held: His absence was critical. PRS failed to obtain a perpetual injunction against music hall proprietors to prevent unlicensed public performances of ‘the Devonshire Wedding’ and ‘Love in Lilac Time’ because they did not own the legal right to the copyright and had not joined the legal owners.
Viscount Cave LC said: ‘That an equitable owner may commence proceedings alone, and may obtain interim protection in the form of an interlocutory injunction is not in doubt; and is, I think, the rule of the Supreme Court, that, in general, when a plaintiff has only an equitable right in the thing demanded, the person having the legal right to demand it must in due course be made, a party to the action: Daniells’ Chancery Practice (7th ed), Vol 1, p 172. If this were not so, a defendant after defeating the claim the equitable claimant might have to resist like proceedings by the legal owner or by persons claiming under him as assignees for value without notice of any prior equity, and proceedings might be indefinitely and oppressively multiplied. No doubt the rule does not apply to a mortgagor at least since the passing of section 25(6) of the Judicature Act 1873; and there may be special reasons, were, it will not be enforced as in William Brandt’s Sons and Co v Dunlop Rubber Co [1905] AC 454, where the defendant disclaimed any wish to have the legal owners made parties.’
Viscount Finlay said: ‘Except under very special circumstances the ordinary rule should be observed, that the legal owner should be a party to the proceedings . . But whatever may be the balance of convenience, the established rules of practice should be adhered to, even in cases, of which I think the present is one, when their observance in all probability will serve no useful purpose. The parties have joined battle on the applicability to the present case of this particular rule of practice, and we must decide according to law, however much we may regret that success in the action should depend on mere technicality which has no relation to the merits of the case.’
Viscount Finlay, Viscount Cave LC, Lord Sumner
[1924] AC 1, [1923] All ER Rep Ext 794
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Barbados Trust Company Ltd v Bank of Zambia and Another CA 27-Feb-2007
The creditor had assigned the debt, but without first giving the debtor defendant the necessary notice. A challenge was made to the ability of the assignee to bring the action, saying that the deed of trust appointed to circumvent the reluctance of . .
Cited – Roberts v Gill and Co and Another CA 15-Jul-2008
The claimant sought damages in negligence against solicitors who had advised the executors in an estate of which he was a beneficiary. He now sought to amend his claim to make a claim in his personal and in derivative capacities. Sums had been paid . .
Cited – Roberts v Gill and Co Solicitors and Others SC 19-May-2010
The claimant beneficiary in the estate sought damages against solicitors who had acted for the claimant’s brother, the administrator, saying they had allowed him to take control of the assets in the estate. The will provided that property was to be . .
Cited – Weddell v JA Pearce and Major 1988
A cause of action in negligence was assigned in February 1986. The writ was issued by the assignee alone on 2 May 1986, at which time no notice of the assignment had been given to the defendants. It was argued that the action was a nullity.
Cited – B4U Network (Europe) Ltd v Performing Right Society Ltd CA 16-Oct-2013
Composers had entered an agreement with the respondent, assigning all copyrights in their works to the respondent. The respondent asserted also an equitable assignment of all future works. The appellant asserted that the rights in the particular . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Intellectual Property, Contract, Litigation Practice
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.249318
An underwriter paid a claim under a policy which he was entitled in law to repudiate for non-disclosure. Although he knew the relevant facts, he was not aware of their legal significance. He claimed back the money he had paid.
Held: A contract cannot be set aside on the grounds of a mistake as to the law. Whereas money paid under a mistake of fact is generally recoverable, as a general rule money is not recoverable on the ground that it was paid under a mistake of law.
Lord Ellenborough asked counsel for the plaintiff: ‘whether he could state any case where if a party paid money to another voluntarily with a full knowledge of all the facts of the case, he could recover it back again on account of his ignorance of the law.’ In the absence of an answer, judgment was given for the defendant: ‘Every man must be taken to be cognisant of the law; otherwise there is no saying to what extent the excuse of ignorance might not be carried. It would be urged in almost every case.’
Lord Ellenborough CJ
(1802) 2 East 469, [1802] EngR 245, (1802) 102 ER 448
Commonlii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Lowry v Boirdeau 1780
‘ignorantia juris non excusat’ – ignorance of the law is no excuse. . .
Cited by:
Overruled – Hazell v Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council HL 1991
Swap deals outwith Council powers
The authority entered into interest rate swap deals to protect itself against adverse money market movements. They began to lose substantial amounts when interest rates rose, and the district auditor sought a declaration that the contracts were . .
Cited – Andre and Cie v Michel Blanc CA 1979
The court criticised the doctrine that a mistake as to the law, common to the parties, does not vitiate a contract. . .
Cited – The Amazonia CA 1991
The court rehearsed the doctrine that a common mistake as to the law would vitiate a contract, Though the rule was well established, the particular contract was void on the basis of a mistake as to foreign law because foreign law is to be treated by . .
Cited – Brennan v Bolt Burdon and Others, London Borough of Islington, Leigh Day and Co CA 29-Jul-2004
The claimant sought damages for injury alleged to have been suffered as tenant of a house after being subjected to carbon monoxide poisoning, and also from her former solicitors for their delay in her claim. The effective question was whether the . .
Overruled – Kleinwort Benson Ltd v Lincoln City Council etc HL 29-Jul-1998
Right of Recovery of Money Paid under Mistake
Kleinwort Benson had made payments to a local authority under swap agreements which were thought to be legally enforceable when made. Subsequently, a decision of the House of Lords, (Hazell v. Hammersmith and Fulham) established that such swap . .
Cited – Woolwich Equitable Building Society v Inland Revenue Commissioners (2) HL 20-Jul-1992
The society had set out to assert that regulations were unlawful in creating a double taxation. It paid money on account of the tax demanded. It won and recovered the sums paid, but the revenue refused to pay any interest accrued on the sums paid. . .
Applied – Brisbane v Dacres 1813
The commander of a naval vessel, HMS Arethusa, had paid to the Admiral in command a proportion of freight received for the carriage of publicly owned bullion on board the Arethusa in the belief that this was due to the Admiral as a matter of usage. . .
Cited – Kelly v Solari CEC 18-Nov-1841
Recovery was sought of money (pounds 200) paid an error of fact. There had been a life policy, but it had lapsed before the death of the life assured. The policy had been marked ‘lapsed’ but the marking had been overlooked.
Held: Where money . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.199748
The defendants intended to sell to the plaintiffs their leasehold interests in mining royalties, but were under a covenant not to sell without the consent of the lessors. A condition of the sale provided for ‘ the usual covenant for our protection as standing between you and our lessors’. A deposit was paid, but the lessors refused consent. The plaintiffs sought return of their deposit, their costs and expenses of investigating title, and for loss of bargain.
Held: The case fell within Flureau -v- Thornhill, and damages were limited to the recovery of the deposit and expenses of investigating title. ‘It is recognised on all hands that the purchaser is not to be held entitled to recover any loss on the bargain he may have made, if in effect it should turn out that the vendor is incapable of completing his contract in consequence of his defective title.
Hatherley L
(1874) LR 7 HL 158, 43 LJ Ex 243, 31 LT 387, 39 JP 228, 23 WR 261
England and Wales
Citing:
Approved – Flureau v Thornhill 1746
A person who contracts to purchase land, but where the title is, without collusion, defective cannot claim for his loss of bargain. ‘These contracts are merely upon condition, frequently expressed, but always implied, that the vendor has good title. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land, Contract, Damages
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.183266
The applicant had been granted a boxing manager’s licence for several years. He appealed its refusal now over a few years.
Held: The case was in the application for a licence rather than in a forfeiture or an expectation class, and there was no obligation to provide reasons for the decision. The exercise of a power revoking a licence will attract the rules of natural justice, particularly when the revocation results in the loss of a right to earn a livelihood or to carry on a financially rewarding activity.
Megarry VC drew a distinction between ‘forfeiture cases’ where an existing benefit such as a licence is terminated or revoked, ‘application cases’ where the grant of some new right or privilege is sought, and an intermediate group of ‘expectation cases’ which differ from the application cases only in that applicant has some legitimate expectation from what has already occurred that his or her application, such as for a licence renewal, will be granted. He discussed the critical distinctions between forfeiture, application and expectation cases: ‘It seems plain that there is a substantial distinction between the forfeiture cases and the application cases. In the forfeiture cases, there is a threat to take something away for some reason: and in such cases, the right to an unbiased tribunal, the right to notice of the charges and the right to be heard in answer to the charges . . are plainly apt. In the application cases, on the other hand, nothing is being taken away, and in all normal circumstances there are no charges, and so no requirement of an opportunity of being heard in answer to the charges. Instead, there is the far wider and less defined question of the suitability of the application for membership or a licence. The distinction is well-recognised, for in general it is clear that the courts will require natural justice to be observed for expulsion from a social club, but not on an application for admission to it. The intermediate category, that of the expectation cases, may at least in some respects be regarded as being more akin to the forfeiture cases than the application cases; for although in form there is no forfeiture but merely an attempt at acquisition that fails, the legitimate expectation of a renewal of the licence or confirmation of the membership is one which raises the question of what it is that has happened to make the applicant unsuitable for membership or licence for which he was previously thought suitable.’
‘I think that the courts must be slow to allow an implied obligation to be fair to be used as a means of bringing before the court for review honest decisions of bodies exercising jurisdiction over sporting and other activities which those bodies are far better fitted to judge than the courts. This is so even where those bodies are concerned with the means of livelihood of those who take part in those activities. The concepts of natural justice and the duty to be fair must not be allowed to discredit themselves by making unreasonable requirements and imposing undue burdens. Bodies such as the board which promote a public interest by seeking to maintain high standards in a field of activity which otherwise might easily become degraded and corrupt ought not to be hampered in their work without good cause.’
Sir Robert Megarry VC
[1978] 3 All ER 211, [1978] 1 WLR 1520
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Koeller and Another v Coleg Elidyr (Camphill Communities Wales) Ltd CA 12-Jul-2005
The applicants occupied a house as licensees. An order for possession was made against them. The company was a charitable company set up to provide accomodation in communities for handicapped adults. The workers in the communities were not formally . .
Approved – Cowley v Heartley 24-Jul-1986
It is the courts’ function to control illegality and make sure that a body does not act outside its powers. . .
Cited – Flaherty v National Greyhound Racing Club Ltd CA 14-Sep-2005
The club regulated greyhound racing. The claimant had complained that its disciplinary proceedings had been conducted unfairly. He said that a panel member had an interest as veterinary surgeon in the proceedings at the stadium at which the alleged . .
Cited – Naidike, Naidike and Naidike v The Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago PC 12-Oct-2004
(Trinidad and Tobago) The claimant was arrested following expiry of the last of his work permits and after he had failed to provide evidence of his intention to leave. As he was arrested he was also arrested for assaulting a police officer. He was . .
Approved – Cowley v Heatley ChD 24-Jul-1986
The court considered a challenge to the disciplinary procedures in the sport of swimming. Sir Nicolas Brown-Wilkinson VC said: ‘I am echoing the sentiments expressed by Sir Robert Megarry VC in McInness v Onslow-Fane [1978] 1 WLR 1520. At page 1535 . .
Cited – McKeown v British Horseracing Authority QBD 12-Mar-2010
The jockey claimant challenged disciplinary proceedings brought against him by the defendant authority.
Held: The findings were upheld in part but remitted for consideration of giving the claimant opportunity to challenge certain evidence. . .
Cited – Bradley v Jockey Club QBD 2004
The former jockey sought an injunction to restrain the respondent enforcing a ban it had imposed on him from working as a jockey for five years. The defendant had previously been ruled authoritatively not to be amenable to judicial review in public . .
Cited – Chambers v British Olympic Association QBD 18-Jul-2008
The claimant, a former Olypmic sprinter had now competed a ban after being found to have taken banned drugs. He had returned to the sprort but now challenged the policy of the respondent not to allow for consideration of the Olympic team, athletes . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Natural Justice, Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.188403
ECJ (Judicial Cooperation In Civil Matters Area of Freedom, Security and Justice : Judgment) Language of the case: Greek. for a preliminary ruling – Judicial cooperation in civil matters – Jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters – Regulation (EC) No 44/2001- Article 23 – Jurisdiction clause – Jurisdiction clause in a contract between two companies – Action for damages – Joint and several liability of representatives of one of those companies for tortious acts – Ability of the representatives to rely upon that clause
A Prechal P
ECLI:EU:C:2017:497, [2017] WLR(D) 428, [2017] EUECJ C-436/16
WLRD, Bailii
Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 23
European
Jurisdiction, Contract, Company
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.588732
The parties contracted to charter the Achileas. The charterer gave notice to terminate the hire, and the owner found a new charterer. Until the termination the charterers sub-chartered. That charter was not completed, delaying the ship for the owners’ new charter which was cancelled. In the meantime hire rates had fallen. The owners claimed damages. The House was asked ‘is the rule that a party may recover losses which were foreseeable (‘not unlikely’) an external rule of law, imposed upon the parties to every contract in default of express provision to the contrary, or is it a prima facie assumption about what the parties may be taken to have intended, no doubt applicable in the great majority of cases but capable of rebuttal in cases in which the context, surrounding circumstances or general understanding in the relevant market shows that a party would not reasonably have been regarded as assuming responsibility for such losses? ‘
Held: The charters were not liable for the owners losses in the absence of a clause making them so. The general understanding in the shipping industry was that damages were not recoverable for loss of a profitable following fixture.
Lord Hoffmann, Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, Baroness Hale of Richmond
[2008] UKHL 48, Times 10-Jul-2008
Bailii, HL
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Hadley v Baxendale Exc 23-Feb-1854
Contract Damages; What follows the Breach Naturaly
The plaintiffs had sent a part of their milling machinery for repair. The defendants contracted to carry it, but delayed in breach of contract. The plaintiffs claimed damages for the earnings lost through the delay. The defendants appealed, saying . .
At first instance – Transfield Shipping Inc of Panama v Mercator Shipping Inc of Monrovia ComC 1-Dec-2006
The owners made substantial losses after the charterers breached the contract by failing to redliver the ship on time as agreed.
Held: On the facts found the Owners’ primary claim is not too remote. To the knowledge of the Charterers, it was . .
Appeal from – Transfield Shipping Inc of Panama v Mercator Shipping Inc of Monrovia (the ‘Achilleas’) CA 6-Sep-2007
The court considered damages for late redelivery of a time-chartered vessel. . .
Cited – Torvald Klaveness A/S v Arni Maritime Corporation (The Gregos) HL 28-Oct-1994
In a continuing charter when it was clear that the time of the charter will be exceeded, the contract allows an action for an anticipatory breach. Any new redelivery order was to be obtained after after it first became impossible to meet the charter . .
Cited – Czarnikow (C ) Ltd v Koufos; The Heron II HL 17-Oct-1967
The vessel had arrived late at Basrah in breach of the terms of the charterparty. The House was asked as to the measure of damages. The charterers had intended to sell the cargo of sugar promptly upon arrival, and now claimed for the fall in the . .
Cited – Alma Shipping Corpn of Monrovia v Mantovani (The Dione) CA 1974
Lord Denning MR said that, in relation to a charterparty for a stated period such as ‘three months’ or ‘six months’, without any express margin or allowance: ‘the court will imply a reasonable margin or allowance. The reason is because it is not . .
Cited – Liverpool City Council v Irwin HL 31-Mar-1976
The House found it to be an implied term of a tenancy agreement that the lessor was to be responsible for repairing and lighting the common parts of the building of which the premises formed part. In analysing the different types of contract case in . .
Cited – Hyundai Merchant Marine Co Ltd v Gesuri Chartering Co Ltd (The Peonia) CA 1991
If a legitimate last voyage under a charterparty nevertheless proves in the event to exceed the implied margin, the charterer will be bound to pay any increase in the market rate above the charter rate during the period of the excess. . .
Cited – Robinson v Harman 18-Jan-1848
Damages for breach of contract should compensate the victim of the breach for the loss of his contractual bargain. Baron Parke said: ‘The next question is: What damages is the plaintiff entitled to recover? The rule of the common law is, that where . .
Cited – Arta Shipping Co Ltd v Thai Europe Tapioca Service Ltd (The Johnny) 1977
When claiming damages for the loss of a charter, the market rate for a substitute charter ‘must be ascertained by postulating a charter-party which corresponds as closely as possible with the actual charter-party.’ . .
Cited – Satef-Huttenes Albertus SpA v Paloma Tercera Shipping Co SA (The Pegase) 1981
Robert Goff J set out the limits of the kinds of losses for which a reasonable person would consider himself responsible: ‘The test appears to be: have the facts in question come to the defendant’s knowledge in such circumstances that a reasonable . .
Cited – Mulvenna v Royal Bank of Scotland Plc CA 25-Jul-2003
The court considered an an application to strike out a claim for damages for the loss of profits which the claimant said he would have made if the bank had complied with its agreement to provide him with funds for a property development.
Held: . .
Cited – South Australia Asset Management Corporation v York Montague Ltd etc HL 24-Jun-1996
Limits of Damages for Negligent Valuations
Damages for negligent valuations are limited to the foreseeable consequences of advice, and do not include losses arising from a general fall in values. Valuation is seldom an exact science, and within a band of figures valuers may differ without . .
Cited – Monarch Steamship Co Ltd v Karlshamns Oljefabriker A/B HL 1949
Damages were sought for breach of contract.
Held: After reviewing the authorities on remoteness of damage, the court reaffirmed the broad general rule that a party injured by the other’s breach of contract is entitled to such money . .
Cited – Transworld Oil Ltd v North Bay Shipping Corpn (The Rio Claro) 1987
Staughton J said that for a loss arising from a breach of contract to be recoverable: ‘It must be such as the contract breaker should reasonably have contemplated as not unlikely to result. To that direction must be added the point that the precise . .
Cited – Victoria Laundry (Windsor) Ltd v Newman Industries CA 1949
The plaintiffs claimed for loss of the profits from their laundry business because of late delivery of a boiler.
Held: The Court did not regard ‘loss of profits from the laundry business’ as a single type of loss. They distinguished losses . .
Cited – Banco de Portugal v Waterlow and Sons Ltd HL 28-Apr-1932
Lord Macmillan said: ‘Where the sufferer from a breach of contract finds himself in consequence of that breach placed in position of embarrassment the measures which he may be driven to adopt in order to extricate himself ought not to be weighed in . .
Cited – The ‘Pegase’ 1981
The court considered the measure of damages for breach of contract in the light of the cases in the Heron II and Victoria Laundry: ‘the principle in Hadley v Baxendale is now no longer stated in terms of two rules, but rather in terms of a single . .
Cited – Torvald Klaveness A/S v Arni Maritime Corporation (The Gregos) ChD 1991
The ship was returned late from a charter. The court was asked whether or not the legitimacy of the last voyage fell to be established at the date when the order was given or at the time when the last voyage began.
Held: It was the second: . .
Cited – Torvald Klaveness A/S v Arni Maritime Corporation (The Gregos) CA 4-Jun-1993
The ship was returned by the charterer after the expiry of the time charter. The court was asked as to when the validity of the last order was to be tested.
Held: The legitimacy of the charterer’s final order was to be tested at the date it . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Damages
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.270659
The parties agreed in writing for the sale of leasehold property to the claimant. One document had been signed, but later one said that it had not included an aportionment. Another document then set out the apportionment. When the defendant refused to proceed, the claimant registered a unilateral notice which the defendant challenged. The parties disagreed as to what had taken place. The adjudicator said that the writing did not satisfy setion 2 of the 1989 Act. He refused rectification and cancelled the notice. The claimant appealed. The claimant said that there was no express finding that the second document so affected the first as to destroy its utility as a complete contract.
Held: The appeal failed. The original document had excluded the details of the apportionment and therefore had not included all the terms of the contract, and the contract did not satisfy section 2. When considering whether two documents were part of one contract, ‘The true question is whether the arrangements are such that the matters are independent in the sense that it is not a term of the contract for the sale of land that the second contract must also be performed. ‘
[2008] EWHC 545 (Ch)
Bailii
Land Registration Act 2002, Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 2
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Whiteside v Whiteside CA 1950
The husband had executed a deed in favour of his former wife after dissolution of their marriage covenanting to pay a specified sum per annum free of income tax up to but not exceeding a stated amount. This provision was in substitution for one . .
Cited – Joscelyne v Nissen CA 1970
A father entered into a written contract with his daughter by which he transferred to her his car hire business in return for her agreement to pay him a pension and discharge certain expenses. In their discussions it had been agreed between them . .
Cited – Grossman v Hooper CA 11-Apr-2001
The parties had lived together in the house, each contributing but held in the name of one only. The parties disputed the effect under the 1989 Act of a letter signed by each of them setting out their agreement as to the basis on which it was held. . .
Cited – Swainland Builders Ltd v Freehold Properties Ltd CA 2002
Swainland Builders Ltd owned the freehold of a block of flats. It had granted 99-year leases at ground rents of all the flats except numbers 11 and 18. It had intended to sell the block subject to the retention of flats 11 and 18 which it initially . .
Cited – Kilcarne Holdings Ltd v Targetfollow (Birmingham) Ltd, Targetfollow Group Ltd ChD 9-Nov-2004
The defendant entered into an agreement for lease, incurring substantial obligations. When it could not meet them it sought assistance from the claimant, who now claimed to have an interest in a joint venture. The draft documentation originally . .
Cited – Allnutt and Another v Wilding and others; Re Strain (deceased) CA 3-Apr-2007
The trustees of a discretionary settlement requested its rectification on the basis that the now deceased settlor’s solicitor had mistakenly not appreciated the need to confer interests in possession on the beneficiaries, with the consequence that . .
Cited – Robert Leonard Developments Limited v Wright CA 23-Mar-1994
The terms expressly agreed by the parties provided for the grant of a lease and the sale of the contents of the property. There was a single agreement for the lease and the contents. The written document did not incorporate the terms as to the sale . .
Cited – Re Butlin’s Settlement Trusts 1976
Sir Billy Butlin had executed a voluntary settlement to allow a majority of trustees to exercise a power under the settlement. By a drafting error the settlement did not give effect to this intention.
Held: The court could rectify the . .
Cited – Racal Group Services Limited v Ashmore CA 1995
The company had covenanted to pay an annual sum to charity. Since the last payment under the covenant was to be made less than three years after the execution of the deed, an intended tax advantage was not secured.
Held: The company’s appeal . .
Cited – McCausland and Another v Duncan Lawrie Ltd and Another CA 18-Jun-1996
The parties entered into a written contract for the sale of land which, in error, provided for completion on a Sunday. The parties varied the date to the Friday but did not execute a new contract which would comply with section 2(1) of the 1989 Act. . .
Cited by:
Cited – North Eastern Properties Ltd v Coleman and Another CA 19-Mar-2010
The appellants challenged specific performance orders obliging them to complete the purchase of apartments, saying that the contracts had not complied with the 1989 Act, and that their repudiation of the contracts had been accepted. The contracts . .
Cited – Ashcroft v Barnsdale and Others ChD 30-Jul-2010
The parties sought to rectify a deed of family arrangement varying a will. The variation deed had had several mistakes which in fact increased the sum of Inheritance Tax owed. HMRC refused to accept the rectification deed unless approved by the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Registered Land
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.266475
Feedstuff was sold by some merchants to a farmer. It was found to be defective. The farmer sued the merchants. The merchants brought in as third party the persons from whom they had purchased the feeding-stuff; they in their turn brought in their suppliers, and there was a long list of many parties brought in right down the chain. As between two of these suppliers a point arose as to whether a term that the buyer under the contract took the responsibility of any latent defects was a term which had been imported into the contract in question by reason of the course of dealing between those parties. There had been more than a hundred prior dealings between the parties, of a similar character, over a period of three years, in which an oral contract for the sale of goods had been followed by a confirmatory ‘Sold-Note’, sent the next day, by the seller to the buyer containing, on the reverse, ‘Conditions of Sale’. The buyer’s agent knew that there were conditions on the reverse, but had never read them.
Held:
Diplock LJ said: ‘Where . . the parties have not agreed to embody their contract in a written document but have entered into an oral contract with the intention of thereby creating legal rights and liabilities and it is sought to rely upon a term contained in some written document as modifying the respective rights and liabilities which would arise by implication of law from the nature of the contract, the only question is whether each party has led the other reasonably to believe that he intended that the rights and liabilities towards one another which would otherwise arise by implication of law from the nature of the contract, namely, a contract for the sale of goods, should be modified in the manner specified in the written document.’
Diplock LJ discussed the applicable lex situs: ‘ . . The proper law governing the transfer of corporeal moveable property is the lex situs. A contract made in England and governed by English law for the sale of specific goods situated in Germany, although it would be effective to pass the property in the goods at the moment the contract was made if the goods were situate in England, would not have that effect if under German law (as I believe to be the case) delivery of the goods was required in order to transfer the property in them.’
Diplock LJ
[1966] 1 WLR 287
England and Wales
Cited by:
Appeal from – Henry Kendall and Sons v William Lillico and Sons Ltd HL 8-May-1968
The plaintiff had purchased quantities of turkey feed from the defendant. It contained a poisonous element, spores of a fungus aspergillus flavus, which killed its flock. The House was asked as to the effect of section 14 of the 1893 Act on the . .
Cited – Hollier v Rambler Motors (AMC) Ltd CA 19-Nov-1971
The plaintiff left his car with the defendant garage for repair. Whilst there it was substantially damaged by fire. The defendant sought to rely upon their terms which would negative liability, saying that the terms had been incorporated by . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, International
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.562089
By a war-time order in council, an Austrian subject, who was an ‘alien enemy’, was prohibited from residing within certain specified areas, including the area where the leased premises were situated. He claimed that the tenancy contract was frustrated.
Held: Although he could not personally exercise a right of personal occupation, he could sub-let the premises and therefore there was no frustration. His personal occupation of the premises was not at the root of the contract.
Lush J said: ‘ As the contract could be performed without his personal residence, the fact that his personal residence was prohibited by the Order did not make the performance of the contract impossible. But there is, I think, a further answer to the contention. It is not correct to speak of this tenancy agreement as a contract and nothing more. A term of years was created by it and vested in the appellant, and I can see no reason for saying that because this Order disqualified him from personally residing in the flat it affected the chattel interest which was vested in him by virtue of the agreement.’
Lush J
[1916] 1 KB 20, [1914-15] All ER 593
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Gamerco Sa v ICM Fair Warning (Agency) Ltd and Another QBD 31-Mar-1995
The plaintiff Spanish concert promoter, and the defendant rock group, Guns ‘n’ Roses, agreed to provide a concert at the stadium of Atetico Madrid, but shortly before it was due to take place, the stadium was deemed unfit, and its licence withdrawn. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Landlord and Tenant
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.564155
Each side sought specific performance of a contract set out in a Heads of Agreement document, but one sought an abatement in the price, saying that the seller was unable to deliver the title promised. The seller replied that the document did not impose any obligation to make a particular title.
Held: The appeal and cross appeal failed. The purchasers went ahead based on their own judgment and despite strong advice to the contrary from their solicitors. The judge had properly considered the documents and her conclusions were not to be disturbed.
Mummery LJ, Wall LJ, Stanley Burnton LJ
[2009] EWCA Civ 35
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – McGrory v Alderdale Estate Co HL 1918
Lord Finlay LC discussed the evidence required in an enquiry as to the vendor’s title to be made on an order for specific performance: ‘if the contract is open, the obligation which the law would import into it to make a good title in every respect . .
Appeal from – Ezekiel and Another v Kohali and Another ChD 11-Apr-2008
. .
Cited – Hofer v Strawson ChD 31-Mar-1999
The debtor had agreed to buy a company from the petitioner, the price to be payable in instalments by means of post-dated cheques. The debtor alleged misrepresentation and stopped one of the cheques. The petitioner served a statutory demand based on . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Land
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.280253
A prospective tenant was allowed into possession and then made periodic payments of rent while negotiations proceeded on the terms of a lease to be granted to him. The negotiations broke down.
Held: The tenant’s appeal failed. It was inferred in the absence of any other material factors that the parties intended to create a tenancy at will rather than a periodic tenancy pending the outcome of the negotiations, since the parties could not be taken to have intended that the periodic payments of rent would create a periodic tenancy when they were not agreed as to the terms on which the prospective tenant would occupy. Accordingly, where the parties were unable to agree the terms of the lease and the vendor gave notice to quit, at that stage the prospective tenant only had a tenancy at will.
Nicholls LJ said: ‘A periodic tenancy is one which continues from period to period until determined by proper notice’ and ‘When one party permits another to enter or remain upon his land on payment of a sum of money . . almost inevitably there will be some consensual relationship between them. It may be no more than a licence determinable at any time, or a tenancy at will. But when and so long as such parties are in the throes of negotiating larger terms, caution must be exercised before inferring or imputing to the parties an intention to give to the occupant more than a very limited interest, be it licence or tenancy. Otherwise the court will be in danger of inferring or imputing from conduct, such as payment of rent and the carrying out of repairs, whose explanation lies in the parties’ expectation that they will be able to reach agreement on the larger terms, an intention to grant a lesser interest, such as a periodic tenancy, which the parties never had in contemplation at all.’
Nicholls LJ, Mustill LJ, Ralph Gibson LJ
[1991] 1 All ER 243, [1991] 1 WLR 1007, [1990] EWCA Civ 1, [1990] 61 P and CR 164, [1990] 41 EG 61
Bailii
Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 Part II
England and Wales
Citing:
Approved – Sopwith v Stuchbury 1983
The tenant had been allowed into occupation of residential property pending agreement of the terms of a tenancy. He argued that he was a tenant at will.
Held: He was a mere licensee, and so was not entitled to go back on an agreed rent . .
Cited – Doe Ex Dim Cheny v Batten 13-Feb-1775
The tenant gave notice to quit but failed to leave the premises by the due date (Michaelmas). The landlord sued for ejectment, but then accepted a quarter’s rent (due at Christmas). Did this create a new tenancy?
Held: The issue depended on . .
Cited – Wheeler v Mercer HL 31-Oct-1956
The freeholder sought possession of his premises occupied by the defendant over many years. The tenant said that he had the protection of the 1954 Act as a tenant at will. The landlord said that the occupation was not protected. The formal tenancy . .
Cited – D’Silva v Lister House Development Ltd 1970
Even an unlawful sub-tenancy can have protection under Part II of the 1954 Act. The court described as fallacious the submission that section 74(1) does not extend to or answer the question whether the document has ever been delivered, saying: ‘The . .
Cited – Longrigg, Burrough Trounson v Smith CA 1979
The defendant dealer in antiques also lived in the property with his wife. He refused to leave after the expiry of the term, claiming a Rent Act tenancy. The lessors had accepted rent from the defendant undertenant who contended that thereby a new . .
Cited – Hagee (London) Ltd v A B Erikson and Larson (a Firm) CA 1975
Tenancy at Will not protectable by 1954 Act
A tenancy at will falls outside the protection of the 1954 Act, though ‘parties cannot impose upon an agreement, by a choice of label, a nature or character which on its proper construction it does not possess’. Entry into possession while . .
Cited – Rogers v Pitcher 8-May-1815
In replevin proof of payment of rent to the avowant is prima facie evidence that he is the owner of the land. But in a case where the Plaintiff did not originally receive the possession of the land from the avowant, it is competent to the Plaintiff . .
Cited – Williams, Executor of Elizabeth Breedon, v Bartholomew 19-Nov-1798
If A, tenant for life subject to forfeiture, remainder over to B., lease to C. for a term, and afterwards apprehending that he has forfeited, acquiesce in B.’s claiming and receiving the rent from C., his executor may, on shewing that be acquiesced . .
Cited – Bishop v Howard 17-Jun-1823
Where A, who held premises under a lease which expired at midsummer, refused to give up the posseslsion at that time, and insisted upon notice to quit, and afterwards continued in possession till Christmas, and paid rent at Michaelmas and Christmas . .
Cited – Doe D Lord v Crago CCP 12-May-1848
The lease had been granted for 99 years or until the earlier death of the last of three people. The assignee of the lease stayed in possession long after the death of such survivor, paying the rent as reserved. He said that the lessor had known of . .
Cited – Doe, On The Demise of Bastow And Others v Cox 15-Nov-1847
A mortgagor retained possession pursuant to a mortgage which provided that he would hold the property as tenant at will, paying a specified yearly rent.
Held: There was an express provision that the tenancy was to be a tenancy at will. Despite . .
Cited – Marcroft Wagons Ltd v Smith CA 1951
Denning LJ discussed the situation of a tenant holding over after his lease had expired: ‘If the acceptance of rent can be explained on some other footing than that a contractual tenancy existed, as, for instance, by reason of an existing or . .
Cited – Lewis v MTC Cars Ltd ChD 1974
The landlord served notice in a form which contained two alternatives, but he failed to strike out one. He added a statement as to why he opposed a new tenancy.
Held: The notice was effective.
Templeman J said: ‘No one reading that notice . .
Cited – Sopwith v Stutchbury CA 1985
The prospective tenant moved into the dwelling-house before the terms had been finalised. The court was asked as to his status between entering and the execution of the tenancy agreement.
Held: He was a mere licensee.
Stephenson LJ said: . .
Cited – Cardiothoracic Institute v Shrewdcrest Ltd ChD 1986
cardio1986
The landlord hoped to redevelop a site. The defendant was in possession as a business tenant pursuant to three successive leases for which orders had been made under section 38(4) of the 1954 Act excluding the operation of sections 24 to 28 of the . .
Cited by:
Cited – Hussein Walji, Zulikar Walji, Mohammed Iqbal Walji, Hussain Walji v Mount Cook Land Limited CA 21-Dec-2000
The claimants sought a new lease under the Act. They were assignees and sureties of an underlease of the premises, but a new underlease had been taken by a company through which the partnership had intended to trade. The partnership had paid rent in . .
Cited – Evans v James (Administratrix of the Estate of Thomas Hopkin Deceased) CA 5-Jul-1999
Before the parties called evidence, and having read the papers, the court considered that there was no real defence shown, and invited submissions. Negotiations for the grant of a tenancy had been terminated by the sudden illness of the proposed . .
Cited – Parker v Parker ChD 24-Jul-2003
Lord Macclesfield claimed a right to occupy a castle. The owners claimed that he had only a mere tenancy at will. The exact rooms in the castle which had been occupied had varied over time.
Held: The applicant was entitled to reasonable . .
Cited – Banjo v London Borough of Brent CA 17-Mar-2005
The tenant had occupied the premises under a long lease which expired by effluxion of time. The landlord failed to take any steps to retake possession, and the tenant continued as a tenant at will, paying no rent. The landlord eventually issued . .
Cited – Mattey Securities Limited v Ervin, Sutton, Mitchell CA 3-Apr-1998
After the insolvency of an assignee of a lease, the landlord talked with possible new tenants, and the original lessee now said that the landlord had impliedly accepted a surrender of the original lease, thus releasing him from continuing liability. . .
Cited – Clear Channel United Kingdom Ltd, Regina (on the Application of) v First Secretary of State and Another Admn 14-Oct-2004
The claimant sought a declaration that it had a tenancy for its occupation by an advertising station, and that it had protection under the 1954 Act. The defendant council said that only a licence had been granted.
Held: The grants included the . .
Cited – Bennett Properties v H and S Engineering QBD 14-Oct-1998
The parties had been landlord and tenant and the lease was to be renewed for a second time. They negotiated and ageed terms for the next lease, including particularly a new rent, but the tenant did not execute the new lease. The landlord had . .
Cited – Laine v Cadwallader CA 26-May-2000
The landlord granted an assured shorthold tenancy for six months fixed at andpound;390 ‘per calendar month payable every two months in advance’. Clause 5 allowed the tenant to terminate the agreement with ‘at least one month’s written notice’. The . .
Cited – QFS Scaffolding Ltd v Sable and Another CA 17-Jun-2010
The parties disputed whether a lease from S to LDC had been surrendered. S and QFS were negotiating for a renewal lease. No new lease having been agreed the parties agreed to a monthly sum to be paid pending agreement. L then let to a third party . .
Cited – Ascot Estates Limited v Gentlefair Limited, Mundow, Ennis CA 5-Jun-1997
. .
Cited – Dreamgate Properties Limited v Arnot CA 18-Jul-1997
. .
Cited – London Baggage Company v Railtrack Plc (No. 1) ChD 17-Apr-2000
Claim for a declaration that a tenancy was held under the 1954 Act. . .
Cited – William Watson Stirling v Leadenhall Residential 2 Ltd CA 29-Jun-2001
Held. A tenant who continued to stay in property after a possession order was granted, but who paid a sum equivalent to rent as it fell due, and something off the arrears, did not necessarily thereby become a tenant again, but could be viewed as a . .
Cited – A Property Company v HM Inspector of Taxes SCIT 5-Oct-2004
SCIT SCHEDULE A – income from land – whether agreements for lease gave rise to an immediate right to rent or whether the right was conditional on obtaining the landlord’s consent to subletting – whether the . .
Cited – Clear Channel UK Ltd v Manchester City Council ChD 14-Dec-2004
. .
Cited – Manton Securities Ltd v Nazam (T/A New Dadyal Cash and Carry) CA 17-Jul-2008
. .
Cited – Hutchison and others v B and DF Ltd ChD 3-Oct-2008
The claimants sought an order declaring that the defendant had a tenancy and requiring it to execute an appropriate lease. The landlords said that the tenant had a continuation lease under the 1954 renewal procedure, and the tenants said they had . .
Cited – Katana and Another v Catalyst Communities Housing Ltd CA 28-Jan-2010
The defendants sought leave to appeal against an order for possession. The landlords were to sell the property to a housing association and let the property to tenants for three months and thereafter terminable on one month’s notice. The tenant had . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Landlord and Tenant, Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.188288
A bank which did not warn its customer of the of risks of a loan and of the need for independent advice was bound by misrepresentations made by customer. The House referred to ‘the broad principle in the field of contract law of fair dealing in good faith.’
Lord Clyde
Times 23-Jun-1997, [1997] 2 FLR 862, 1997 SC (HL) 111, [1997] UKHL 26
House of Lords, Bailii
Scotland
Citing:
Appeal from – Mumford v Bank of Scotland; Smith v Same OHCS 4-Aug-1994
Bank has no duty in Scotland to wife of borrower securing debt on house. . .
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Immigration Officer at Prague Airport and another, ex parte European Roma Rights Centre and others HL 9-Dec-2004
Extension oh Human Rights Beyond Borders
The appellants complained that the system set up by the respondent where Home Office officers were placed in Prague airport to pre-vet applicants for asylum from Romania were dsicriminatory in that substantially more gypsies were refused entry than . .
Cited – Royal Bank of Scotland v Etridge (No 2); Barclays Bank plc v Harris; Midland Bank plc v Wallace, etc HL 11-Oct-2001
Wives had charged the family homes to secure their husband’s business borrowings, and now resisted possession orders, claiming undue influence.
Held: Undue influence is an equitable protection created to undo the effect of excess influence of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Banking, Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.135220
The parties agreed in principle for the sale of land with potential development value. Considerable sums were spent, and permission achieved, but the owner then sought to renegotiate the deal.
Held: The appeal succeeded in part. The finding that Mrs Lisle-Mainwaring’s behaviour in repudiating, and seeking an improvement on, the core financial terms of the second agreement was unconscionable and sufficient to justify the creation of a ‘proprietary estoppel equity’. . But to leap from there to a conclusion that a proprietary estoppel case was made out was not justified.
Even without attempting to vary the terms of the agreement, the company could not have been obliged to go ahead: ‘Proprietary estoppel requires, in my opinion, clarity as to what it is that the object of the estoppel is to be estopped from denying, or asserting, and clarity as to the interest in the property in question that that denial, or assertion, would otherwise defeat. If these requirements are not recognised, proprietary estoppel will lose contact with its roots and risk becoming unprincipled and therefore unpredictable, if it has not already become so. ‘ The claimant was entitled to a quantum meruit payment for his services, and te value of that should represent the extent of the unjust enrichment obtained by the plaintiff.
Lord Hoffmann, Lord Scott of Foscote, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, Lord Mance
[2008] UKHL 55, [2008] 35 EG 142, [2008] 31 EG 88, [2008] WTLR 1461, [2008] 1 WLR 1752
Bailii, Times, HL
Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 19892
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Yeoman’s Row Management Ltd and Another v Cobbe CA 31-Jul-2006
The defendants orally agreed to sell the claimant a block of flats for andpound;12 million if he first obtained planning permission for it on terms as to a sharing of subsequent development profits. The claimant spent over andpound;100,000 and . .
At First Instance – Yeoman’s Row Management Ltd v London Rent Assessment Committee Chairman QBD 25-Feb-2005
The parties agreed in principle that there would be an application for planning permission, and that if granted the land would be bought and the profits shared. Considerable work was undertaken and permission achieved, but the seller then sought to . .
Cited – Laird v Birkenhead Railway Co 22-Nov-1859
The plaintiff applied to the defendant railway company for permission to construct and use a private branch line connecting with the railway company’s main line. Agreement was reached for the plaintiff to do so ‘on reasonable terms, which were to be . .
Cited – Attorney General of Hong Kong v Humphreys Estate (Queen’s Gardens) Ltd PC 1987
An agreement in principle was marked ‘subject to contract’. The Government would acquire some flats owned the plaintiff Group of companies in return for the Government granting, inter alia, a lease to the Group of some Crown lands. The Government . .
Cited – Muschinski v Dodds 1985
(High Court of Australia) The idea of conscience is too vague a notion to found the principles of equity, it would open the door to ‘idiosyncratic notions of fairness and justice’ and ‘That property was acquired, in pursuance of the consensual . .
Cited – Taylors Fashions Ltd v Liverpool Victoria Trustees Co Ltd ChD 1981
The fundamental principle that equity is concerned to prevent unconscionable conduct permeates all the elements of the doctrine of estoppel. In the light of the more recent cases, the principle ‘requires a very much broader approach which is . .
Cited – Ramsden v Dyson HL 1866
The Vice-Chancellor had held that two tenants of Sir John Ramsden, the owner of a large estate near Huddersfield, were entitled to long leases of plots on the estate. They ostensibly held the plots as tenants at will only, but they had spent their . .
Cited – Plimmer v Mayor, Councillors and Citizens of the City of Wellington PC 1884
(New Zealand) Mr Plimmer had occupied land under a revocable licence from the Corporation’s predecessor-in-title and at their request had made extensive improvements to it. He sought compensation when the land was to be vested in the defendant. The . .
Cited – Inwards v Baker CA 13-Jan-1965
An indulgent father had encouraged his son to build a bungalow on his, the father’s, land. The son had done so in the expectation, encouraged by the father, that he would be permitted to remain in occupation.
Held: The court formulated the . .
Cited – Holiday Inns Inc v Broadhead 1974
The parties negotiated for a lease, but never signed a contract. The plaintiff expended considerable sums to try to get planning, and once acquired it sought to buy the land, and claimed that Mr Broadhead had taken an unconscionable advantage, . .
Cited – Crabb v Arun District Council CA 23-Jul-1975
The plaintiff was led to believe that he would acquire a right of access to his land. In reliance on that belief he sold off part of his land, leaving the remainder landlocked.
Held: His claim to have raised an equity was upheld. The plaintiff . .
Cited – British Steel Corporation v Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Co Ltd 1983
An ‘if contract’ is where one party makes an offer capable of acceptance on the basis that ‘if you do this for us, we will do that for you’. Often used in the construction industry.
Goff J said: ‘the question whether . . any contract has come . .
Cited – Pallant v Morgan ChD 1952
The agents of two neighbouring landowners orally agreed in the auction room that the plaintiff’s agent would refrain from bidding at auction and that the defendant, if his agent’s bid was successful, would divide the land according to an agreed . .
Cited – Time Products Ltd v Combined English Stores 2-Dec-1974
The plaintiff and the defendant were each interested in buying a property and had agreed that one of them would make an offer, the other refraining from doing so, and that if the offer were to be accepted the purchaser would deal with the property . .
Cited – Walton Stores (Interstate) Limited v Maher 1988
(High Court of Australia) It would be unconscionable for a party to stand by in silence when it must have known that the other party was proceeding on an assumption that they had a binding agreement. . .
Cited – Pridean Limited v Forest Taverns Limited; Hipwell and Marshall CA 28-Nov-1996
The claimant owned a public house. It set out with the defendant to to acquire the premises or to take a lease of them. The defendant went into occupation, and carried out works. Negotiations continued, but broke down over the form of protection to . .
Cited – London and Regional Investments Ltd v TBI Plc and Others CA 22-Mar-2002
TBI was a property investor and developer with several subsidiaries. It agreed to sell some to London and Regional. The agreement provided for the vendor and the purchaser to use reasonable endeavours to agree the terms of a joint venture agreement . .
Cited – Banner Homes Group Plc v Luff Developments and Another CA 10-Feb-2000
Competing building companies agreed not to bid against each other for the purchase of land. One proceeded and the other asserted that the land was then held on trust for the two parties as a joint venture.
Held: Although there was no formal . .
Cited – Kilcarne Holdings Ltd v Targetfollow (Birmingham) Ltd and Another CA 16-Nov-2005
The defendant had brought in the claimant in order to assist in satisfying its own obligations under a lease. The joint venture was not recorded in a formal agreement. The appellant asserted that a constructive trust had been created. The judge had . .
Cited – Dann v Spurrier 1802
The tenant had carried out improvements to the property. It was uncertain whether the length of the term (7, 14 or 21 years) was at the option of the lessee alone.
Held: The case was decided on construction of the lease. Lord Eldon made it . .
Cited – Rochdale Canal Company v King 1853
Sir John Romilly MR said: ‘The principle on which the Defendants rely is one often recognised by this Court, namely, that if one man stand by and encourage another, though but passively, to lay out money, under an erroneous opinion of title, or . .
Cited – Dillwyn v Llewelyn ChD 12-Jul-1862
The father thought he had given his younger son land in Wales, in signing a memorandum and presenting it to him ‘for the purpose of furnishing himself with a dwelling-house’. The memorandum was not by deed. The son built his home on the land. When . .
Cited – Regina (Reprotech (Pebsham) Ltd) v East Sussex County Council Reprotech (Pebsham) Ltd v Same HL 28-Feb-2002
The respondent company had asserted that the local authority had made a determination of the issue of whether electricity could be generated on a waste treatment site without further planning permission. The council said that without a formal . .
Cited – Willmott v Barber ChD 19-Jun-1880
In 1869 Barber granted a 99-year lease of three acres of land in east London, subject to a covenant against assignment or sub-letting without consent. In 1874, in breach of covenant, he sub-let one acre on an annual tenancy to Willmott (who owned a . .
Cited – Pascoe v Turner CA 1-Dec-1978
The defendant had been assured by the plaintiff that ‘the house is yours and everything in it.’ In reliance on that assurance she carried out improvements to the house. Although the improvements were modest, their cost represented a large part of . .
Cited – Grundy v Ottey CA 31-Jul-2003
The deceased left his estate within a discretionary trust. The claimant sought to assert an interest in it, claiming an estoppel and, under the 1975 Act, as his partner. They had lived together for four years. She had been dependent upon him . .
Cited – Lissimore v Downing ChD 31-Mar-2003
The claimant asserted an estoppel in land registered in the name of the defendant.
Held: Unspecific statements made by the defendant that ‘she would never want for anything’, or that ‘he would take care of her’, or that ‘he had looked after . .
Cited – Windeler v Whitehall 1990
The plaintiff and defendant lived together but were not married. The plaintiff spent some of a legacy she received on living expenses and supervised minor building works to the family home. She claimed an interest in it.
Held: Millett J said: . .
Cited – Jennings v Rice, Wilson, Marsh, Norris, Norris, and Reed CA 22-Feb-2002
The claimant asserted a proprietary estoppel against the respondents. He had worked for the deceased over many years, for little payment, and doing more and more for her. Though he still worked full time at first, he came to spend nights at the . .
Cited – Gillett v Holt and Another ChD 18-Jun-1998
To establish a proprietary estoppel against the testator’s promise to leave items in his will, some overt act over and above a promise, and reliance upon that promise, must be shown in order to displace the testator’s right to change his will. . .
Cited – Gillett v Holt and Another CA 23-Mar-2000
Repeated Assurances Created Equitable Estoppel
Repeated assurances, given over years, that the claimant would acquire an interest in property on the death of the person giving the re-assurance, and upon which the claimant relied to his detriment, could found a claim of equitable estoppel. The . .
Cited – JT Developments v Quinn and Another CA 1990
The plaintiff told the defendant it was willing to grant a lease on the same terms as those contained in a new tenancy that the plaintiff had recently granted to the tenant of a nearby shop, also owned by the plaintiff. The defendant carried out . .
Cited – Bank of Credit and Commerce International (Overseas) Ltd and Another v Akindele CA 22-Jun-2000
The test of whether a person who received funds held them on constructive trust, was not whether he himself was dishonest, but rather whether he had knowledge of circumstances which made it unconscionable to hold on to the money received. In respect . .
Cited by:
Cited – Brightlingsea Haven Ltd and Another v Morris and others QBD 30-Oct-2008
The caravan park operated under planning consents requiring the caravans to be occupied only during certain months. The defendants had bought their mobile homes from the claimants to occupy full time, and said that the claimants knew of this. The . .
Cited – St Pancras and Humanist Housing Association Ltd v Leonard CA 17-Dec-2008
The claimant sought possession of a garage. The defendant claimed adverse possession.
Held: The defendant’s appeal against an order for possession failed. The defendant had attended a meeting where his behaviour had allowed other parties to . .
Cited – Brighton and Hove City Council v Audus ChD 26-Feb-2009
The claimant was the proprietor of a fourth legal charge on a title. It sought a declaration that a second charge in favour of the defendant was void as a clog on the proprietor’s equity of redemption. An advance secured by a first charge, also in . .
Cited – Clarke and Another v Corless and Another ChD 8-Jul-2009
The parties disputed whether one could retain for his own benefit land on an estate reserved for an estate road. A trust was claimed under Pallant saying that the parties had made an informal agreement before the property was purchased.
Held: . .
Cited – Thorner v Major and others HL 25-Mar-2009
The deceased had made a will including a gift to the claimant, but had then revoked the will. The claimant asserted that an estoppel had been created in his favour over a farm, and that the defendant administrators of the promisor’s estate held it . .
Cited – Clarke and Another v Corless and Another CA 31-Mar-2010
The claimants appealed against refusal of a declaration that a neighbouring access road and land was held on a constructive trust. They said that an agreement bewteeen the parties should have been effective to impose a trust on the defendants. The . .
Cited – Gill v Woodall and Others ChD 5-Oct-2009
The claimant challenged her late mother’s will which had left the entire estate to a charity. She asserted lack of knowledge and approval and coercion, and also an estoppel. The will included a note explaining that no gift had been made because she . .
Cited – Benedetti v Sawiris and Others SC 17-Jul-2013
The claimant appealed against reduction of the sum awarded on his claim for a quantum meruit after helping to facilitate a very substantial business deal for the defendants.
Held: The correct approach to the amount to be paid by way of a . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Land, Estoppel
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.271281
The plaintiff sought to make the defendants responsible for breach of contract for the sale and purchase of Russion softwood timber. The plaintiff said that the defendants had repudiated the contract. The defendants said that it had been cancelled by mutual consent.
Held: The court may imply terms into a contract based on the previous business dealings of the parties.
In the absence of the parties having made the necessary stipulations literally provided therein, the necessary stipulations contained in the original contract may be therein implied, in order to prevent the sterile result of avoidance for uncertainty.
Lord Tomlin, Lord Warrington of Clyffe, Lord Thankerton, Lord Macmillan, Lord Wright
[1932] All ER 494, (1932) 147 LT 503, [1932] UKHL 2, [1932] 43 LI LR 359
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – F L Schuler AG v Wickman Machine Tools Sales Limited HL 4-Apr-1973
The parties entered an agreement to distribute and sell goods in the UK. They disagreed as to the meaning of a term governing the termination of the distributorship.
Held: The court can not take into account the post-contractual conduct or . .
Cited – F L Schuler AG v Wickman Machine Tools Sales Limited HL 4-Apr-1973
The parties entered an agreement to distribute and sell goods in the UK. They disagreed as to the meaning of a term governing the termination of the distributorship.
Held: The court can not take into account the post-contractual conduct or . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.248484
Statements had been made by employees of Esso in the course of pre-contractual negotiations with Mr Mardon, the prospective tenant of a petrol station. The statements related to the potential throughput of the station. Mr Mardon was persuaded by the statements to enter into the tenancy; but he suffered serious loss when the actual throughput proved to be much lower than had been predicted. Mr Marden did his best but he lost his capital and incurred a large bank overdraft as a result of his trading losses.
Held: Mr. Mardon was entitled to recover damages from Esso, on the basis of either breach of warranty or (on this point affirming the decision of the judge below) negligent misrepresentation. A contractor is not free to carry on with a disastrous contract and then seek to recover any losses on the basis of fraud. A special relationship, giving rise to a duty of care, may arise between the parties negotiating a contract if information is given in connection with the contract.
Lord Denning MR held: ‘A professional man may give advice under a contract for reward; or without a contract, in pursuance of a voluntary assumption of responsibility, gratuitously without reward. In either case he is under one and the same duty to use reasonable care: see Cassidy v. Ministry of Health [1951] 2 K.B. 343, 359-360. In the one case it is by reason of a term implied by law. In the other, it is by reason of a duty imposed by law. For a breach of that duty he is liable in damages: and those damages should be, and are, the same, whether he is sued in contract or in tort.’ and: ‘He is only to be compensated for having been induced to enter into a contract which turned out to be disastrous for him. Whether it be called breach of warranty or negligent misrepresentation, its effect was not to warrant the throughput but only to induce him to enter the contract. So the damages in either case are to be measured by the loss he suffered. Just as in Doyle v Olby he can say: ‘I would not have entered into this contract at all but for your representation. Owing to it, I have lost all the capital I put into it. I also incurred a large overdraft. I have spent four years of my life in wasted endeavour without reward: and it will take sometime to re-establish myself.’ For all such loss he is entitled to recover damages.’
Ormrod and Shaw LJJ agreed that Mr. Mardon was entitled to recover damages either for breach of warranty or for negligent misrepresentation.
Lord Denning MR, Ormrod, Shaw LJJ
[1976] QB 801, [1976] EWCA Civ 4, [1976] 2 All ER 5
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Doyle v Olby (Ironmongers) Ltd CA 31-Jan-1969
The plaintiff had been induced by the fraudulent misrepresentation of the defendant to buy an ironmonger’s business for 4,500 pounds plus stock at a valuation of 5,000 pounds. Shortly after the purchase, he discovered the fraud and started the . .
Cited by:
Cited – AMEC Mining v Scottish Coal Company SCS 6-Aug-2003
The pursuers contracted to remove coal by opencast mining from the defender’s land. They said the contract assumed the removal first of substantial peat depositys from the surface by a third party. They had to do that themselves at substantial cost. . .
Cited – Spice Girls Ltd v Aprilia World Service Bv ChD 24-Feb-2000
Disclosure Duties on those entering into contract
The claimants worked together as a five girl pop group. The defendants had signed a sponsorship agreement, but now resisted payment saying that one of the five, Geri, had given notice to leave the group, substantially changing what had been . .
Applied – Archer v Brown 1984
The defendant sold shares in his company to the plaintiff. He had however already sold them elsewhere. The plaintiff sought both rescission and damages. The defendant argued that he could not be entitled to both.
Held: The misrepresentation . .
Cited – Geldof Metaalconstructie Nv v Simon Carves Ltd CA 11-Jun-2010
The parties contracted for the supply and installation of pressure vessels by Geldof (G) for a building constructed by Simon Carves (SC). The contract contained a clause denying the remedy of set-off. G sued for the sale price, and SC now sought an . .
Cited – Downs and Another v Chappell and Another CA 3-Apr-1996
The plaintiffs had suceeded in variously establishing claims in deceit and negligence, but now appealed against the finding that no damages had flowed from the wrongs. They had been sold a business on the basis of incorrect figures.
Held: . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Torts – Other, Damages, Negligence, Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.185449
Land was bought for development, but the purchaser later discovered a sewage pipe which very substantially limited its development potential. The existence of the pipe had not been disclosed on the sale, being unknown to the seller.
Held: Under the National Conditions of Sale, it is the purchaser who takes the risk of there being easements unknown to the seller. A seller was not liable for damages for misrepresentation if he had taken reasonable steps to make known to the purchaser what he himself knew. Clause 14 of the Conditions is not an exclusion clause, but rather qualifies the vendor’s obligations. It did not therefore fall to be tested for reasonableness. In replies to preliminary enquiries, the phrase ‘not so far as the vendor is aware’ represents that the solicitor and client have each made appropriate enquiries to support the statement, and: ‘knowledge may go beyond what is in somebody’s head, that it requires a solicitor to read his file and to read it properly and to make . . reasonable and prudent investigation of the grounds upon which the belief is based . .’
Lord Justice Russell Lord Justice Evans and Lord Justice Hoffmann
Ind Summary 28-Jun-1993, Times 08-Jun-1993, [1993] NPC 82 CA, [1994] 1 WLR 1016, [1994] 3 All ER 932, [1993] EWCA Civ 14
Bailii
Misrepresentation Act 1967 2, Law of Property Act 1925 76
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Wheeldon v Burrows CA 17-Jun-1879
Quasi-Easements granted on sale of part of Estate
S owned a workshop and an adjoining plot of land. The workshop had three windows looking out over the plot. The property was sold in separate lots at auction. The land was sold with no express reservation of any easements, and then similarly the . .
Cited – Heywood v Mallalieu 1883
A house was sold at auction by a mortgagee ‘subject to any easements.’ It turned out to be subject to an easement in favour of a neighbour entitling her to come and wash her clothes in the kitchen. The vendor’s solicitor had been told that the . .
Cited – Littledale v Liverpool College CA 1900
The mere storage of items in a property was insufficient to demonstrate the necessary intention to dispossess the rightful owner. It was a mere exercise of the rights under an easement. Enclosure of land is not necessarily decisive. Lord Lindley MR . .
Cited – Brown v Raphael 1958
This was a sale of an absolute reversion in a trust fund. The particulars stated that: ‘Estate duty will be payable on the death of the annuitant who is believed to have no aggregable estate’ and the name of the solicitors who prepared the . .
Cited – Cremdean Properties Ltd v Nash CA 1977
The defendant had relied on a non-reliance clause in the special conditions of a tender: ‘Messrs. Lalonde Bros and Parham for themselves, for the vendors or landlord whose agents they are give notice that (a) These particulars are prepared for the . .
Cited – Leeds Industrial Co-operative Society Ltd v Slack HL 1924
The plaintiff complained of a threatened interference with ancient lights.
Held: Damages may be awarded in lieu of an injunction even where the injunction sought is a quia timet injunction, but that power imports a further power to give an . .
Cited – Associated Japanese Bank (International) Ltd v Credit du Nord SA 1988
A contract of guarantee was made, but based upon a term of fundamental importance which was mistaken as to the existence of certain machines.
Held: The court must first look to the nature of the purported agreement. Steyn J said: ‘Logically, . .
Cited – Hill v Harris CA 1965
A lessor or vendor does not impliedly warrant that the premises are fit for any particular purpose. It is the contract which allocates the risk of the premises being unfit for such a purpose to the lessee. The lessee has duties to investigate the . .
Cited – Walters v Babergh District Council 1983
An action was brought for for negligence and/or breach of statutory duty under the 1936 Act. The plaintiff alleged that Melford Rural District Council (‘Melford’: the Defendant Council’s predecessor) had failed to inspect with reasonable care the . .
Cited – Grist v Bailey 1966
The parties believed that the property to be sold was occupied by a ‘protected tenant’. This was not so since the property could have been sold with vacant possession. It was argued that the contract could be set aside for common mistake.
Cited – Johnson v Agnew HL 1979
The seller had obtained a summary order for specific performance of a contract for the sale of land against the buyer.
Held: The breach was continuing and was still capable of being remedied by compliance with the order for specific . .
Cited – Laurence v Lexcourt Holdings Ltd ChD 1978
The purchasers sought rescission of a 15 year lease of business premises. Unknown to either party, the planning permission restricted their use as offices to a period of no more than two years.
Held: There had been a misrepresentation by the . .
Cited – Bell v Lever Brothers Ltd HL 15-Dec-1931
Bell was director and chairman of Niger, a subsidiary of Lever Brothers Ltd who dismissed him, offering and paying andpound;30,000 compensation. Lever then discovered that Mr Bell had made secret profits at the expense of Niger for which he could . .
Cited – Davis Contractors Ltd v Fareham Urban District Council HL 19-Apr-1956
Effect of Contract Frustration
The defendant appellants contended that their construction contract was frustrated because adequate supplies of labour were not available to it because of the war.
Held: The court considered how the frustration of the performance of a contract . .
Cited – Kemp Properties (UK) Ltd v Dentsply Research and Development Corporation 1991
The measure of damages is the same as for fraudulent misrepresentation i.e. all loss caused by the plaintiff having been induced to enter into the contract. . .
Cited – Jackson v Union Marine Insurance Co Ltd CCP 1874
The plaintiff ship owner, contracted under a charterparty to proceed with all possible dispatch to Newport. He insured the cargo. The ship ran aground before the cargo could be collected, and was delayed. The charterers threw up the charterparty and . .
Cited – Solle v Butcher CA 1949
Fundamental Mistake Needed to Allow Rescission
The court set out the circumstances in which the equitable remedy of rescission of a contract is available for mutual mistake. The mistake has to be as to some fundamental element of the contract. What is ‘fundamental’ is a wider category of event . .
Cited by:
Cited – MCI Worldcom International Inc v Primus Telecommunications Inc ComC 25-Sep-2003
The claimant sought judgment, and the defendant leave to amend its defence. The question was whether the proposed defence had any reasonable prospect of success.
Held: The misrepresentation alleged was made by the claimant’s in-house . .
Cited – Sykes and Another v Taylor-Rose and Another CA 27-Feb-2004
The appellants purchased a property from the respondents. The house had been the site of a partiularly horrendous murder in 1980, but the respondents did not disclose the fact.
Held: The doctrine of caveat emptor still had application. As . .
Cited – First National Commercial Bank Plc v Loxleys (a Firm) CA 6-Nov-1996
The plaintiff claimed damages from the seller of land and from their solicitors for misrepresentation in the replies to enquiries before contract. He appealed a striking out of his claim.
Held: A lawyer’s disclaimer placed on his Replies to . .
Cited – Graves v Graves and others CA 3-Jul-2007
The parties had divorced and settled financial provision, but the former wife and her children came to need a house and one of the claimant’s properties became vacant, and she was allowed to occupy it as a tenant, with the majority of the rent being . .
Cited – Morgan and Another v Pooley and Another QBD 7-Oct-2010
morgan_pooleyQBD10
The claimants had bought a property from the defendants and now sought damages in misrepresentation saying that the defendants had failed to disclose a planning application for an adjacent farm as regards a track bordering the property.
Held: . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land, Professional Negligence, Contract, Legal Professions
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.90518
The parties entered into a written contract for the sale of land which, in error, provided for completion on a Sunday. The parties varied the date to the Friday but did not execute a new contract which would comply with section 2(1) of the 1989 Act. Time was not initially of the essence of the contract.
Held: The variation was invalid, but the original contract, as unvaried, remained in force. A variation of a contract for the sale of land under the new Act must itself comply with the formalities of the Act if it is to be applied. Section 2 is an entirely new provision which marks a radical change in the law.
Morritt LJ said that estoppel may be available. The contractual date for completion was a material term, if only because it specified the time from which one or other party was entitled to serve a notice to complete and make time of the essence: ‘the choice lies between permitting a variation, however fundamental, to be made without any formality at all and requiring it to satisfy Section 2. In my view it is evident that Parliament intended the latter. There would be little point in requiring that the original contract comply with Section 2 if it might be varied wholly informally. Further the respect in which the Act differs from the Bill proposed by the Law Commission indicates that Parliament intended more, rather than less, formality than that recommended by the Law Commission.’ and ‘The reasons for the recommendation were to avoid the uncertainties arising from the doctrine of part performance, to ensure mutuality between both parties to the contract and to avoid the continuing uncertainty surrounding the operation of Section 40 Law of Property Act 1925 notwithstanding its long history’
Neill LJ said: ‘It seems to me to be clear that Parliament intended to introduce new and strict requirements as to the formalities to be observed for the creation of a valid disposition of an interest in land. Under Section 2 all the terms of the contract have to be incorporated in the signed document. Counsel for the plaintiffs was correct when he submitted that the formalities prescribed by Section 2 have to be applied to the contract as varied. ‘
Neill LJ, Morritt LJ
Times 18-Jun-1996, Gazette 10-Jul-1996, [1996] 4 All ER 995, [1997] 1 WLR 38
Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 2
England and Wales
Citing:
Applied – Morris v Baron and Co HL 1918
The House drew a distinction between a variation of a contract required to be evidenced in writing, and the rescission (or discharge) of such a contract. The former was itself required to be evidenced in writing; the latter was not.
Lord . .
Cited – Williams v Moss Empires Ltd ChD 1915
The court considered what was necessary to achieve a variation of a contract. Shearman J: ‘The principle . . is that where there is alleged to have been a variation of a written contract by a new parol contract, which incorporates some of the terms . .
Cited by:
Cited – Yaxley v Gotts and Another CA 24-Jun-1999
Oral Agreement Creating Proprietory Estoppel
The defendant offered to give to the Plaintiff, a builder, the ground floor of a property in return for converting the house, and then managing it. They were friends, and the oral offer was accepted. The property was then actually bought in the name . .
Cited – Bankers Trust Company v Namdar and Namdar CA 14-Feb-1997
The bank sought repayment of its loan and possession of the defendants’ property. The second defendant said that the charge had only her forged signature.
Held: Non-compliance with section 2 of the 1989 Act does not make a bargain illegal, and . .
Cited – Jelson Ltd v Derby City Council ChD 30-Jun-1999
Agreements under the planning acts remained subject to the general law requiring formalities for contracts for the sale of land. Where two landowners had an understanding as to the expectations for the division of responsibility for provision of . .
Cited – Nweze and Another v Nwoko CA 29-Mar-2004
The parties had settled their dispute in an oral compromise agreement under which it was agreed that land would be sold at the best price reasonably obtainable. One now argued this was unenforceable as an agreement for the disposal of land requiring . .
Cited – Kilcarne Holdings Ltd v Targetfollow (Birmingham) Ltd, Targetfollow Group Ltd ChD 9-Nov-2004
The defendant entered into an agreement for lease, incurring substantial obligations. When it could not meet them it sought assistance from the claimant, who now claimed to have an interest in a joint venture. The draft documentation originally . .
Cited – Courtney v Corp Ltd CA 1-Mar-2006
The claimants sought to enforce an offer of finance to support a land purchase. The defendants argued that the offer failed to meet the characteristics required under section 2 of the 1989 Act.
Held: The judge had been correct to say that the . .
Cited – Eyestorm Ltd v Hoptonacre Homes Ltd CA 19-Dec-2007
The appellant had agreed to take leases on a development of the defendant, hoping to sell the apartments on at a profit. After difficulties, the appellant refused to complete, and the defendant forfeited the deposits.
Held: Eyestorm’s appeal . .
Cited – Oun v Ahmad ChD 19-Mar-2008
The parties agreed in writing for the sale of leasehold property to the claimant. One document had been signed, but later one said that it had not included an aportionment. Another document then set out the apportionment. When the defendant refused . .
Cited – Rudra v Abbey National Plc and Stickley and Kent (Risk Management Unit) Limited CA 26-Feb-1998
The parties disputed whether a contract had been entered into for the sale of land, and whether new evidence could be entered on an appeal against a strike out. The estate agents had signed a contract as agents for the mortgagee in possession, but . .
Cited – Milebush Properties Ltd v Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council and Others ChD 13-May-2010
The claimant sought a delaration that it had a right of way over an access road. The defendants said that the agreement fell foul of the 1989 Act.
Held: The claimant was not entitled to the declaration. Agreements under the 1990 Act are . .
Cited – H L Estates Limited, Wynford Newman Dore v Parker-Lake Homes Limited ChD 20-Mar-2003
. .
Cited – Graham and others v Mayrick ChD 23-Mar-2006
The claimants sought specific performance of a compromise agreement with the defendant after a dispute over a strip of land. The defendant appealed a finding that the claimants had shown satisfactory title.
Held: ‘It has long been established . .
Cited – Urban Manor Limited v Sadiq CA 20-Feb-1997
Appeal by prospective purchaser of property from order that contract rescinded, and deposit forfeited. . .
Cited – Yaxley v Gotts and Gotts CA 20-Mar-1998
The defendants were granted leave to appeal out of time. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land, Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.83509
Mr Balfour had set out in an apparently formal legal way, an agreement to give his wife pounds 30 a month by way of maintenance while he was away in Ceylon. Mrs Balfour sought to enforce the agreement.
Held: Within a family there is a rebuttable presumption against an intention to form legal relations. No sufficient evidence had been shown by Mrs Balfour to counter that presumption. Lord Atkin described, as a presumption of fact that family arrangements do not give rise normally to binding contracts: ‘To my mind those agreements, or many of them, do not result in contracts at all, and they do not result in contracts even though there may be what as between other parties would constitute consideration for the agreement. The consideration, as we know, may consist either in some right, interest, profit or benefit accruing to one party, or some forbearance, detriment, loss or responsibility given, suffered or undertaken by the other. That is a wall-known definition, and it constantly happens. I think, that such arrangements made between husband and wife are arrangements in which there are mutual promises, or in which there is consideration in the form within the definition that I have mentioned. Nevertheless, they are not contracts, and they are not contracts because the parties did not intend that they should be attended by legal consequences’.
Lord Atkin
[1919] 2 KB 571, [1918-19] All ER Rep 860, (1919) 88 LJKB 1054, (1919) 121 LT 346, (1919) 35 TLR 609
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Esso Petroleum Limited v Commissioners of Customs and Excise HL 10-Dec-1975
The company set up a scheme to promote their petrol sales. They distributed coins showing the heads of members of the English football team for the 1970 World Cup. One coin was given with each for gallons of petrol. The Commissioners said that the . .
Distinguished – Merritt v Merritt CA 1970
H and W owned their house jointly. When H left for another woman, he signed an agreement to pay Mrs Merritt a monthly sum, and eventually to transfer the house to her if Mrs M kept up the monthly mortgage payments. When the mortgage was paid off Mr . .
Cited – Jones v Padavatton CA 29-Nov-1968
A mother had persuaded her daughter to come to England to study for the Bar, promising to allow her to stay in her house Several years later, the daughter had still not passed any Bar examinations. They fell out, and the mother sought possession of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Family
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.242895
The plaintiff sold 13 mahogany logs to the defendant. The defendant was to use them for cabinet making and inspected a sample, declaring them not to be of the best but adequate for chairs. When the entire consignment was delivered, he refused to pay saying that they had holes ‘so big you could put your head in them’. Held; The plaintiff succeeded. The logs delivered were of the same quality as inspected, and so the buyer knew what he was getting.
Times 08-Jan-1788
England and Wales
Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.270278
(Nova Scotia En Banco) The parties contracted for a charter of a fishing ship. It then became unlawful for a ship to use otter trawl, the only equipment available to the ship, without a licence, but the number of licences was restricted and did not include this ship. The charterers claimed that the contract was frustrated. The Supreme Court of Canada had said that the contract remaned binding since the charterers had selected other ships to be licensed.
Held: The decision to opt to licence other ships determined the appeal in favour of the owners. The loss of the St. Cuthbert’s licence was correctly described, quoad the appellants as ‘a self induced frustration.’
Lord Wright, referred to criticism of Krell v. Henry and said: ‘The authority is certainly not one to be extended: it is particularly difficult to apply where, as in the present case, the possibility of the event relied on as constituting a frustration of the adventure (here the failure to obtain a licence) was known to both parties when the contract was made, but the contract entered into was absolute in terms so far as concerned that known possibility. It may be asked whether in such cases there is any reason to throw the loss on those who have undertaken to place the thing or service for which the contract provides at the other party’s disposal and are able and willing to do so.’
Atkin, Tomlin, MacMillan, Wright LL
[1935] UKPC 1, [1935] AC 524, [1935] UKPC 20
Bailii, Bailii
Citing:
Cited – Bank Line Ltd v Arthur Capel and Co HL 12-Dec-1918
The defendant ship-owners contracted to lease the ship on charter to the plaintiffs. Before the term, the ship was requisitioned for the war effort. The plaintiffs did not exercise the contractual right given to them to cancel the charterparty. The . .
Cited – Krell v Henry CA 1903
Mr Henry contracted to rent a flat located on Pall Mall from the plaintiff, Paul Krell for the daytime and on the days of the forthcoming cornation procession.. He was told that he would have an excellent view of, but this was not written down. He . .
Cited – Hirji Mulji v Cheong Yue Steamship Co PC 1926
Lord Sumner described the doctrine of frustration as ‘a device by which the rule as to absolute contracts are reconciled with a special exception which justice demands.’ . .
Cited – Bank Line Ltd v Arthur Capel and Co HL 12-Dec-1918
The defendant ship-owners contracted to lease the ship on charter to the plaintiffs. Before the term, the ship was requisitioned for the war effort. The plaintiffs did not exercise the contractual right given to them to cancel the charterparty. The . .
Cited by:
Cited – Gold Group Properties Ltd v BDW Trading Ltd TCC 3-Mar-2010
The parties had contracted for the construction of an estate of houses and flats to be followed by the interim purchase by the defendants. The defendants argued that the slump in land prices frustrated the contract and that they should not be called . .
Cited – North Shore Ventures Ltd v Anstead Holdings Inc and Others ChD 21-Jun-2010
Claim was made under a substantial loan where payments had not been made after assets were sequestered and only released after four years. . .
Cited – Gamerco Sa v ICM Fair Warning (Agency) Ltd and Another QBD 31-Mar-1995
The plaintiff Spanish concert promoter, and the defendant rock group, Guns ‘n’ Roses, agreed to provide a concert at the stadium of Atetico Madrid, but shortly before it was due to take place, the stadium was deemed unfit, and its licence withdrawn. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Commonwealth, Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.245727
The claimant had suffered damage at the defendant’s car park. The defendant relied upon an exemption clause printed on the ticket, and now appealed against rejection of its defence under the clause.
Held: The appeal failed. The more extreme an exemption clause, the clearer is the notice required to be given before it will be regarded as having been incorporated into the contract.
Megaw LJ said: ‘When conditions sought to be attached all constitute . . the sort of restriction . . that is usual . . it may not be necessary for a defendant to prove more than that the intention to attach some conditions has been fairly brought to the notice of the other party. But at least where the particular condition relied on involves a sort of restriction that is not shown to be usual . . a defendant must show that his intention to attach an unusual condition of that particular nature was fairly brought to the notice of the other party. How much is required as being . . reasonably sufficient to give the plaintiff notice of the condition, depends on the circumstances.’ In relation to the particular condition restricting liability for personal injury as I have said to say – ‘In my view, however before it can be said that a condition of that sort, restrictive of statutory rights, has been fairly brought to the notice of a party to a contract there must be some clear indication which would lead an ordinary sensible person to realise, at or before the time of making the contract, that a term of that sort relating to personal injury, was sought to be included.’
Lord Denning MR said: ‘the customer is bound by the exempting condition if he knows that the ticket is issued subject to it; or if the company did what was reasonably sufficient to give him notice of it’, however ‘No customer in a thousand ever read the conditions [on the back of a parking lot ticket]. If he had stopped to do so, he would have missed the train or the boat.
None of those cases has any application to a ticket which is issued by an automatic machine. The customer pays his money and gets a ticket. He cannot refuse it. He cannot get his money back. He may protest to the machine, even swear at it; but it will remain unmoved.’
Lord Denning MR, Megaw LJ, Sir Gordon Willmer
[1971] 1 All ER 686, [1971] 2 WLR 585, [1971] 2 QB 163, [1970] EWCA Civ 2, [1971] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 289, [1971] RTR 79
Bailii
Occupiers Liability Act 1957
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – TICC Limited v Cosco (UK) Limited CA 5-Dec-2001
The claimants sought to have incorporated by notice into a contract of bill of lading, the terms of a freight surcharge. Notice had been given to the shipping agents in Hong Kong only. The shippers claimed the surcharge under the 1992 Act, saying . .
Cited – Interfoto Picture Library Ltd v Stiletto Visual Programmes Ltd CA 12-Nov-1987
Incorporation of Onerous Terms Requires More Care
Photographic transparencies were hired out to the advertising agency defendant. The contract clauses on the delivery note included a fee which was exorbitant for the retention of transparencies beyond the set date.
Held: The plaintiff had not . .
Cited – Amiri Flight Authority v BAE Systems Plc CA 17-Oct-2003
The appellant had contracted to purchase maintenance from the defendant of aircraft it had also purchased from them. They sought damages for negligence, saying the defendants had failed to prevent a known risk of corrosion. The defendants argued . .
Cited – Brodie, Marshall and Co (Hotel Division) Ltd v Sharer 1988
The defendant resisted payment of his estate agent’s charges. The agency contract gave the agent sole selling rights, but the purchaser was found on the vendor’s own initiative. The terms made commission was payable if ‘we introduce directly of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Personal Injury
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.182831
Kleinwort Benson had made payments to a local authority under swap agreements which were thought to be legally enforceable when made. Subsequently, a decision of the House of Lords, (Hazell v. Hammersmith and Fulham) established that such swap agreements were unlawful. Kleinwort Benson then sought restitution of the payments on the basis of a mistake of law.
Held: It should be recognised that there was a general right to recover money paid under a mistake, whether of fact or law. ‘the mistake of law rule no longer forms part of English law.’ Where the law was deemed to have changed after a court decision, money paid under a view of the previous settled law became recoverable. The law is deemed always to have been as now found. The limitation period ran from the date of the discovery of the error of law. The old rule is not to be followed. Money paid under a mistake of law should be recoverable on the same footing as money paid under a mistake of fact, subject in the same way to the defences available in the law of restitution, which include the defence of change of position. ‘I should consider whether parties in the position of the appellant bank were mistaken when they paid money to local authorities under interest swap agreements which they, like others, understood to be valid but have later been held to be void. To me, it is plain that the money was indeed paid over under a mistake, the mistake being a mistake of law. The payer believed, when he paid the money, that he was bound in law to pay it. He is now told that, on the law as held to be applicable at the date of the payment, he was not bound to pay it. Plainly, therefore, he paid the money under a mistake of law, and accordingly subject to any applicable defences, he is entitled to recover it.’ and ‘The present rule, under which in general money is not recoverable in restitution on the ground that it has been paid under a mistake of law, should no longer be maintained as part of English law, from which it follows that the facts pleaded by the bank in each action disclose a cause of action in mistake. There is no principle of English law that payments made under a settled understanding of the law which is subsequently departed from by judicial decision shall not be recoverable in restitution on the ground of mistake of law.’
Lord Lloyd of Berwick discussed the ability of the common law to change: ‘This brings us to the central question. Nobody now suggests that the common law is static. It is capable of adapting itself to new circumstances. Is it then capable of being changed? or is it only capable of being developed? The common sense answer is that the common law is capable of being changed, not only by legislation, but also by judicial decision. This is nowhere clearer than when a long-standing decision of the Court of Appeal is overruled. Indeed in a system such as ours, where the Court of Appeal is bound by its own previous decisions, the main justification for the existence of a second tier appeal is that it enables the House to re-direct the law when it has taken a wrong turning. ‘
Lord Browne-Wilkinson, Lord Goff of Chieveley, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, Lord Hoffmann, Lord Hope of Craighead
Gazette 18-Nov-1998, Gazette 10-Feb-1999, Times 30-Oct-1998, [1998] UKHL 38, [1999] 2 AC 349, [1998] 4 All ER 513, [1998] 3 WLR 1095, [1998] Lloyds Rep Bank 387
House of Lords, Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Limited – David Securities Pty Ltd v Commonwealth Bank of Australia 1992
(High Court of Australia) Moneys paid away as a result of a causative mistake of law are recoverable: ‘the payer will be entitled prima facie to recover moneys paid under a mistake if it appears that the moneys were paid by the payer in the mistaken . .
Appeal from – Kleinwort Benson Ltd v Birmingham City Council CA 20-May-1996
No defence of unjust enrichment was available to defend a claim on a failed interest rate swap agreement. . .
Cited – Hazell v Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council HL 1991
Swap deals outwith Council powers
The authority entered into interest rate swap deals to protect itself against adverse money market movements. They began to lose substantial amounts when interest rates rose, and the district auditor sought a declaration that the contracts were . .
Overruled – Bilbie v Lumley and Others 28-Jun-1802
Contract Not Set Aside for Mistake as to Law
An underwriter paid a claim under a policy which he was entitled in law to repudiate for non-disclosure. Although he knew the relevant facts, he was not aware of their legal significance. He claimed back the money he had paid.
Held: A contract . .
Cited – University of Wollongong v Merwally 22-Nov-1984
(High Court of Australia) Deane J said: ‘A parliament may legislate that, for the purposes of the law which it controls, past facts or past laws are to be deemed and treated as having been different to what they were. It cannot however objectively . .
Cited – Henderson v Folkestone Waterworks Co 1885
The plaintiff had paid water rates to the defendant calculated in accordance with the law as it was held to be by the Court of Appeal. After payment, the House of Lords in the Dobbs case changed the law, and if calculated under the changed law the . .
Cited – In re Roberts 1905
A compromise made under a mistake of law can be set aside. . .
Cited – Baker v Courage and Co 1910
The plaintiff had owned a public house. On selling the leasehold to the defendants brewers, they had overpaid him by andpound;1,000. He deposited a sum at interest with the defendants. When he came to withdraw the last of the deposit (by coincidence . .
Cited – Derrick v Williams CA 1939
The plaintiff had accepted a payment into court on a basis that a Court of Appeal decision declared the law in a form which precluded the recovery of certain types of damages. Subsequently the House of Lords reversed the Court of Appeal decision and . .
Cited – Commissioner of State Revenue v The Royal Insurance Australia Ltd 7-Dec-1994
(High Court of Australia) A payment had been made under statute which was later repealed with retrospective effect.
Held: The monies paid under the retrospectively repealed statute had not been paid under a mistake of law at common law. . .
Cited – In re Hollis’ Hospital and Hague’s Contract ChD 5-Jul-1899
In October, 1898, a contract was entered into on behalf of the present trustees of Hollis Hospital for the sale of certain freehold property belonging to the hospital.
The property contracted to be sold formed part of certain property which . .
Cited – In re Downshire Settled Estates CA 1953
A scheme of arrangements was proposed on behalf of infant beneficiaries to three settlements. The object of the scheme was to avoid losses to the beneficiaries by reason of inheritance tax.
Held: The court rejected the contention that it had . .
Cited – Hazell v Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council QBD 1990
The issue before the courts was whether, in the absence of any express power authorising the Council to do so, the Council was within its power under s 111(1) of the Local Government Act 1972 to enter into certain swap transactions;
‘The fact . .
Cited – Kelly v Solari CEC 18-Nov-1841
Recovery was sought of money (pounds 200) paid an error of fact. There had been a life policy, but it had lapsed before the death of the life assured. The policy had been marked ‘lapsed’ but the marking had been overlooked.
Held: Where money . .
Cited – Lowry v Bourdieu 1780
A mistake of law was not a good ground for recovery of money paid in error. . .
Cited – Woolwich Equitable Building Society v Inland Revenue Commissioners (2) HL 20-Jul-1992
The society had set out to assert that regulations were unlawful in creating a double taxation. It paid money on account of the tax demanded. It won and recovered the sums paid, but the revenue refused to pay any interest accrued on the sums paid. . .
Cited – Brisbane v Dacres 1813
The commander of a naval vessel, HMS Arethusa, had paid to the Admiral in command a proportion of freight received for the carriage of publicly owned bullion on board the Arethusa in the belief that this was due to the Admiral as a matter of usage. . .
Cited – Lipkin Gorman (a Firm) v Karpnale Ltd HL 6-Jun-1991
The plaintiff firm of solicitors sought to recover money which had been stolen from them by a partner, and then gambled away with the defendant. He had purchased their gaming chips, and the plaintiff argued that these, being gambling debts, were . .
Cited – Wilson and M’Lellan v Sinclair 1830
Lord Brougham LC said that since Brisbane v. Dacres it had been considered an established point that a mistake must be ‘in the fact’ to allow recovery of money paid in error. . .
Cited – Hazell v Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council CA 2-Jan-1990
The authority entered into interest rate swap agreements, whose validity was challenged. The court considered what were the functions of a local authority within the Act. ‘We agree with the Divisional Court that in [section 111(1)] the word . .
Cited – Dixon v Monkland Canal Company 1831
Recovery of money paid in error of law. . .
Cited – In re Hallett’s Estate; Knatchbull v Hallett CA 1880
Where a trustee of a policy used money received from others to make payment of premiums on an insurance policy, they would be entitled to a lien on the policy. Where an asset was acquired exclusively with trust money, the beneficiary could either . .
Cited – Morgan Guaranty Trust Co of New York v Lothian Regional Council IHCS 19-Jan-1995
Money paid under error in law is repayable according to equity, and without statutory authority on the ground of unjustified enrichment. . .
Cited – Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale v Islington London Borough Council; Kleinwort Benson Ltd v Sandwell Borough Council ChD 23-Feb-1993
A bank, having made payment under an void interest rate swap agreement to a local authority, was entitled to recover the payments made under the equitable doctrine of restitution. It would be wrong to allow the local authorities to enjoy an unjust . .
Cited – Regina v Inland Revenue Commissioners, Ex parte Woolwich Equitable Building Society HL 25-Oct-1990
The society challenged the validity of transitional provisions in the 1986 regulations on the ground that they were ultra vires. The House considered the specific presumption against double taxation, and also a power in general terms to make . .
Cited – Earl Beauchamp v Winn HL 1873
The rules in equity as to restitution after a payment made under a mistake of law apply as much to mistakes of fact as to mistakes of law. . .
Cited – In re Diplock CA 1948
S 26 of the Act of 1939 would operate to postpone the running of time in the case of an action at common law to recover money paid under a mistake of fact, and would likewise apply to an analogous claim in equity to recover money paid under a . .
Cited – Phillips-Higgins v Harper QBD 1954
A claim was made to recover monies due under a contract where the plaintiff had failed to realise that the balance was due to her, and by that mistake the action was concealed from her.
Held: Pearson J said: ‘But that is not sufficient. . .
Cited – Stirling v Earl of Lauderdale 1733
The maxim ignorantia juris non excusat did not apply only to the law of delict. . .
Cited – Kiriri Cotton Co Ltd v Dewani PC 1-Dec-1959
(Eastern Africa) A premium had been paid in consideration of the grant of a sub-lease of property contrary to the provisions of an ordinance. Restitution was ordered because payment had been made pursuant to a contractual obligation rendered void by . .
Cited – Fibrosa Spolka Akcyjna v Fairbairn Lawson Combe Barbour Ltd HL 15-Jun-1942
A contract for the supply by the respondents of special machinery to be manufactured by them was treated as an ordinary contract for the sale of goods. It began valid, but suffered frustration by the outbreak of war.
Held: Lord Wright restated . .
Cited – In re Condon, Ex parte James 1874
The Trustee in bankruptcy has relevant duties as the Trustee as an officer of the Court. Such a Trustee would not engage in conduct which could be seen to involve an unfair use of that position, and ‘where it would be unfair’ for a trustee in . .
Cited – Regina v Tower Hamlets London Borough Council, ex parte Chetnik Developments Limited HL 1988
The House was asked whether a rating authority could refuse to repay rates which had been paid by mistake.
Held: ‘Parliament must have intended the rating authorities to act in the same high principled way expected by the court of its own . .
Cited by:
Cited – Deutsche Morgan Grenfell Group Plc v The Commissioners of Inland Revenue, HM Attorney General ChD 18-Jul-2003
The taxpayer sought to bring an action for restitution by the revenue of sums paid under a mistake of law. Under the Metallgesellschaft decision, rights of election for recovery of overpaid tax applied only between UK resident companies.
Held: . .
Cited – Niru Battery Manufacturing Company, Bank Sepah Iran v Milestone Trading Limited CA 23-Oct-2003
The claimant had contracted to purchase lead from some of the defendants. There were delays in payment but when funds were made available they should have been repaid. An incorrect bill of lading was presented. The bill certified that the goods had . .
Applied – Margaret Brennan v Bolt Burdon, London Borough of Islington, Leigh Day and Co QBD 30-Oct-2003
The claimant had sought relief for the injury to her health suffered by condition of her flat. The legal advisers had settled the matter, thinking that the claim had not been timeously served. The defendant appealed an order that the compromise was . .
Applied – Pankhania v The London Borough of Hackney ChD 2002
A brochure listing properties to be sold at auction decribed the property as being subject to a terminable licence. In fact it was a secure tenancy. The question arose as to whether a misrepresentation of law could found a cause of action.
Distinguished – S v S (Ancillary Relief: Consent Order) FD 4-Mar-2002
An order for ancillary relief had been made by consent. Later the House of Lords issued a judgment which changed the law which had been the basis of the decision to accept the settlement. The wife now sought to set aside the consent order, and . .
Cited – Oliver Ashworth (Holdings) Limited v Ballard (Kent) Limited CA 18-Mar-1999
In order for the landlord to claim double rent where a tenant held over unlawfully after the tenancy was determined, the landlord must not do anything to indicate that the lease might be continuing, for example by denying the validity of break . .
Cited – George Worme Grenada Today Limited v The Commissioner of Police PC 29-Jan-2004
PC (Grenada) The defendant was editor of a newspaper which carried a story severely defamatory of the prime minister. He was convicted of criminal libel, and appealed.
Held: The appeal was dismissed. The . .
Cited – DFS Furniture Company Plc v Commissioners of Customs and Excise CA 16-Mar-2004
The taxpayers said that the Commissioners’ assessment to VAT was out of time, and appealed a finding that it was not. They said that time should run from the point at which the Commissioners knew the facts upon which the assessment was based. The . .
Cited – Brennan v Bolt Burdon and Others, London Borough of Islington, Leigh Day and Co CA 29-Jul-2004
The claimant sought damages for injury alleged to have been suffered as tenant of a house after being subjected to carbon monoxide poisoning, and also from her former solicitors for their delay in her claim. The effective question was whether the . .
Cited – Inland Revenue and Another v Deutsche Morgan Grenfell Group Plc CA 4-Feb-2005
The company sought repayment of excess advance corporation tax payments made under a mistake of law. The question was the extent of the effect of the ruling in Klienwort Benson, in particular whether it covered sums paid as taxation, and how the law . .
Cited – National Westminster Bank plc v Spectrum Plus Limited and others HL 30-Jun-2005
Former HL decision in Siebe Gorman overruled
The company had become insolvent. The bank had a debenture and claimed that its charge over the book debts had become a fixed charge. The preferential creditors said that the charge was a floating charge and that they took priority.
Held: The . .
Cited – Halpern and Another v Halpern and others ComC 24-Mar-2006
The deceased parents, being orthodox Jews, had first made standard wills and then made provision accoding to Jewish law. A dispute after the second death was referred to a Beth Din arbitration. After an initial resolution, various distributions were . .
Cited – Meretz Investments Nv and Another v ACP Ltd and others ChD 30-Jan-2006
The applicant challenged the exercise of a power of sale under a mortgage, saying that the mortgagee’s purposes included purposes not those under the mortgage. The parties had been involved in an attempted development of a penthouse.
Held: The . .
Cited – Smithkline Beecham Plc Glaxosmithkline UK Ltd and Another v Apotex Europe Ltd and others (No 2) CA 23-May-2006
The parties to the action had given cross undertakings to support the grant of an interim injunction. A third party subsequently applied to be joined, and now sought to take advantage of the cross undertakings to claim the losses incurred through . .
Cited – Lloyds Bank Plc v Independent Insurance Co Ltd CA 26-Nov-1998
The bank had made an electronic transfer of funds for a customer in satisfaction of that customer’s proper debt, but it was done under a mistake of fact as to the cleared status of funds received.
Held: The appeal was turned down. The bank was . .
Cited – Deutsche Morgan Grenfell Group Plc v Inland Revenue and Another HL 25-Oct-2006
The tax payer had overpaid Advance Corporation Tax under an error of law. It sought repayment. The revenue contended that the claim was time barred.
Held: The claim was in restitution, and the limitation period began to run from the date when . .
Cited – Awoyomi v Radford and Another QBD 12-Jul-2007
The claimant sought damages from the defendant barristers who had represented her in criminal proceedings. They had not passed on to her the statement made by the judge in chambers that if she pleaded guilty he would not impose a sentence of . .
Cited – Sempra Metals Ltd v Inland Revenue Commissioners and Another HL 18-Jul-2007
The parties agreed that damages were payable in an action for restitution, but the sum depended upon to a calculation of interest. They disputed whether such interest should be calculated on a simple or compound basis. The company sought compound . .
Cited – Somerville v Scottish Ministers HL 24-Oct-2007
The claimants complained of their segregation while in prison. Several preliminary questions were to be decided: whether damages might be payable for breach of a Convention Right; wheher the act of a prison governor was the act of the executive; . .
Cited – Fender (Administrator of FG Collier and Sons Ltd) v National Westminster Bank Plc ChD 26-Sep-2008
The administrator sought declarations as to whether to treat the bank as a secured or unsecured creditor.
Held: The court directed the Administrator to recognise the Bank as a secured creditor, as if the Deed of Release had never been . .
Cited – Kommune and Another v DEPFA Acs Bank ComC 4-Sep-2009
Local authorities in Denmark sought to recover sums paid to the defendant banks for swap trading, saying that the payments had been outwith their powers. . .
Cited – Brazzill and Others v Willoughby and Others CA 27-May-2010
The regulated bank Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander Ltd (KSF) was in financial difficulties. The Bank of England required KSF to credit to a trust account all future deposits. KSF later went into insolvency. Some deposits had been credited to the . .
Cited – Jones v Churcher and Another QBD 18-Mar-2009
. .
Cited – The Law Debenture Trust Corporation Plc v Elektrim Sa and Another ChD 20-Jul-2009
. .
Cited – Bloomsbury International Ltd and Others v Sea Fish Industry Authority and Another QBD 24-Jul-2009
Parties challenged the legality of a levy imposed by the defendant for the purposes of supporting the sea food industry. They said that a levy imposed on fish products imported to the UK was beyond the powers given by the 1981 Act, and was contrary . .
Cited – Haugesund Kommune and Another v Depfa Acs Bank CA 27-May-2010
. .
Cited – Littlewoods Retail Ltd and Others v HM Revenue and Customs ChD 19-May-2010
The claimants had overpaid large sums of VAT over several years, and been, eventually, refunded, with simple interest. The claimants now said that the interest should have been compounded. The revenue contended that such a claim was excluded under . .
Cited – Deutsche Bank Ag v Vik and Another ComC 19-Mar-2010
. .
Cited – Franked Investment Group Litigation Test Claimants v Inland Revenue and Another CA 23-Feb-2010
. .
Cited – Marine Trade Sa v Pioneer Freight Futures Co Ltd Bvi and Another ComC 29-Oct-2009
The parties stood to make substantial losses against each other under contracts for differences after the dramatic fall in the freight market in the financial turmoil of late 2008. . .
Cited – Thin Cap Group Litigation, Test Claimants In v Revenue and Customs ChD 17-Nov-2009
. .
Cited – Test Claimants In The Franked Investment Income Group Litigation v Inland Revenue SC 23-May-2012
The European Court had found the UK to have unlawfully treated differently payment of franked dividends between subsidiaries of UK companies according to whether all the UK subsidiaries were themselves UK based, thus prejudicing European . .
Cited – Aspect Contracts (Asbetos) Ltd v Higgins Construction Plc SC 17-Jun-2015
Aspect had claimed the return of funds paid by it to the appellant Higgins under an adjudication award in a construction contract disute. The claimant had been asked to prpare asbestos surveys and reports on maisonettes which Higgins was to acquire . .
Cited – Revenue and Customs v The Investment Trust Companies SC 11-Apr-2017
Certain investment trust companies (ITCs) sought refunds of VAT paid on the supply of investment management services. EU law however clarified that they were not due. Refunds were restricted by the Commissioners both as to the amounts and limitation . .
Cited – Prudential Assurance Company Ltd v Revenue and Customs SC 25-Jul-2018
PAC sought to recover excess advance corporation tax paid under a UK system contrary to EU law. It was now agreed that some was repayable but now the quantum. Five issues separated the parties.
Issue I: does EU law require the tax credit to be . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Equity
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.135173
The effect of the 1873 Act was essentially procedural and it did not render choses in action that had not previously been assignable in equity capable of assignment.
Channell J defined a debt or other legal chose in action: ”Chose in Action’ is a known legal expression used to describe all personal rights of property which can only be claimed or enforced by action, and not by taking physical possession. It is an expression large enough to include rights which it can hardly have been intended should be assignable by virtue of the sub-section in question, as, for instance, shares, which can only be transferred as provided by the Companies Acts. It is probably necessary, therefore, to put some limit upon the generality of the words; but I think that the necessary limitation is shewn by the considerations to which I have already referred, and also by the words of subs. 6 itself. I think the words ‘debt or other legal chose in action’ mean ‘debt or right which the common law looks on as not assignable by reason of its being a chose in action, but which a Court of Equity deals with as being assignable’.’
Lord Alverstone CJ, Darling and Channell JJ
[1902] 2 KB 427, [1902] UKLawRpKQB 119, [1900-3] All ER 991
Commonlii
Judicature Act 1873 25(6)
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Murungaru v Secretary of State for the Home Department and others CA 12-Sep-2008
The claimant was a former Kenyan minister. He had been visiting the UK for medical treatment. His visas were cancelled on the basis that his presence was not conducive to the public good. Public Interest Immunity certificates had been issued to . .
Cited – Simpson v Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Trust CA 12-Oct-2011
The court was asked whether it was possible to assign as a chose in action a cause of action in tort for damages for personal injury, and if so under what circumstances it was possible.
Held: The appeal was dismissed. The claimant did not have . .
Cited – Williams v Glover and Another ChD 4-Jun-2013
The company’s liquidator had refused to assign to its former directors a claim for a reduction in corporation tax which they were funding.
Held: Such a claim did not constitute property within section 436, and was not a chose capable of . .
Cited – Your Response Ltd v Datateam Business Media Ltd CA 14-Mar-2014
The claimant employed the defendant to manage subscription lists for the claimant’s magazines. The claimant came to seek damages, and the defendant for non-payment of its invoices. The court was now asked whether it was possible to assert a common . .
Cited – Marshall, Regina v CACD 6-Mar-1998
Sale of Unexpired Portion of Ticket can be a Theft
The defendants had been using London Underground tickets, but selling on the unused balance after their journey. On a ruling at trial, they pleaded guilty to theft, but now appealed.
Held: The appeals failed. Although the tickets had passed to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.277075
A guarantee contained a promise to pay the debt of another, but made no mention of the consideration given for the guarantee. Lord Ellenborough CJ said: ‘the clause in question in the Statute of Frauds has the word agreement. And the question is, whether that word is to be understood in the loose incorrect sense in which it may sometimes be used, as synonymous to promise or undertaking, or in its more proper and correct sense, as signifying a mutual contract on consideration between two or more parties? The latter appears to me to be the true construction of the word, to which we are bound to give its proper effect; the more so when it is considered by whom that statute is said to have been drawn the person to be charged for the debt of another is to be charged, in the form of the proceeding against him, upon his special promise, but without a legal consideration to sustain it, that promise would be nudum pactum as to him. The statute never meant to enforce any promise which was before invalid merely because it was put in writing. The obligatory part is indeed the promise, which will account for the word promise being used in the first part of the clause, but still in order to charge the party making it, the statute proceeds to require that the agreement, by which must be understood the agreement in respect of which the promise was made, must be reduced into writing. And indeed it seems necessary for effectuating the object of the statute that the consideration should be set down in writing as well as the promise; for otherwise the consideration might be illegal, or the promise might have been made upon a condition precedent, which the party charged may not afterwards be able to prove, the omission of which would materially vary a promise, by turning that into an absolute promise which was only a conditional one: and then it would rest altogether on the conscience of the witness to assign another consideration in the one case, or to drop the condition in the other, and thus to introduce the very frauds and perjuries which it was the object of the Act to exclude, by requiring that the agreement should be reduced into writing, by which the consideration as well as the promise would be rendered certain. The authorities all show that the word agreement is not satisfied unless there be a consideration, which consideration forming part of the agreement ought therefore to have been shown; and the promise is not binding by the statute unless the consideration which forms part of the agreement be also stated in writing.’
Grose J said: ‘what is required to be in writing therefore, is the agreement (not the promise, as mentioned in the first part of the clause) or some note or memorandum of the agreement. Now the agreement is that which is to show what each party is to do or perform, and by which both parties are to be bound; and this is required to be in writing.’
Lawrence J said: ‘and as the consideration for the promise is part of the agreement, that ought also to be stated in writing.’
Grose J, Lord Ellenborough CJ, Lawrence J
[1804] KB 10, [1804] EngR 184, (1804) 5 East 10, (1804) 102 ER 972
Commonlii
England and Wales
Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.252315
The defendant appealed a finding of deceit. Having issued its certificate as to the quality of a cargo of gasoline, it then failed to disclose to the party who had paid it to produce the certificate, information it had which cast doubt on the accuracy of te certificate.
Held: Dishonesty was the essence of the tort of deceit. Though it was possible to be fraudulent even by making an ambiguous statement, in such a case it was essental that the statement should be understood in the way intended and it should be a representation of fact, and be relied upon. In the circumstances of the case, the claimant could establish a cause of action in deliberate concealment but not in deceit.
Buxton LJ, Rix LJ, Sir Martin Nourse
[2006] EWCA Civ 1601, Times 21-Dec-2006, [2007] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 562, [2007] 1 All ER (Comm) 667
Bailii
Limitation Act 1980 32(2)
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – AIC Ltd v ITS Testing Services (UK) Ltd ComC 7-Oct-2005
. .
Cited – Jones v Sherwood Computer Services Limited plc CA 1992
A contract provided for the sale and purchase of shares. In the absence of agreement a third party firm of accountants would act as valuer as an expert, and his decision was to be final and binding on the parties. One party now appealed a decision . .
Cited – Veba Oil Supply and Trading Gmbh v Petrotrade Inc CA 6-Dec-2001
A dispute between parties to a contract was to be determined by an independent expert. It was claimed that his report was not binding on the parties, since he had departed from his instructions in a material way. In this context, what constituted a . .
Cited – Assicurazioni Generali Spa v Arab Insurance Group (BSC) CA 13-Nov-2002
Rehearing/Review – Little Difference on Appeal
The appellant asked the Court to reverse a decision on the facts reached in the lower court.
Held: The appeal failed (Majority decision). The court’s approach should be the same whether the case was dealt with as a rehearing or as a review. . .
Cited by:
Cited – Grosvenor Casinos Ltd v National Bank of Abu Dhabi ComC 17-Mar-2008
Banker’s reference no guarantee
An Arab businessman lost pounds 18m at the claimant casino, and wrote scrip cheques against his account with the defendant. The claimant obtained judgment, but being unable to enforce that judgment pursued his bank. The club had used a system where . .
Cited – Lindsay v O’Loughnane QBD 18-Mar-2010
lindsay_oloughnaneQBD11
The claimant had purchased Euros through a foreign exchange dealer. The dealer company became insolvent, causing losses to the claimant, who sought to recover from the company’s managing director, the defendant, saying that he was aware of the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Torts – Other, Limitation
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.246701
The plaintiff agreed to sail with the defendant on a voyage being paid pounds 5.00 a month. Two crew deserted and the captain asked the remainder to do their work sharing the wages saved. The plaintiff sought the additional sum above the articled rate.
Held: The claim failed for the absence of consideration: ‘the agreement is void for want of consideration. There was no consideration for the ulterior pay promised to the mariners who remained with the ship. Before they sailed from London they had undertaken to do all that they could under all the emergencies of the voyage. They had sold all their services till the voyage should be completed.’ The performance of a pre-existing contractual obligation is not sufficient consideration to create a contract.
Lord Ellenborough
[1809] EWHC KB J58, [1809] EngR 552, (1809) 2 Camp 317, (1809) 170 ER 1168 (B)
Bailii, Commonlii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – In Re Selectmove Ltd CA 21-Dec-1993
Promisse to Pay Tax due is not Consideration
The company appealed against an order for its winding up, saying that the debt was disputed, an accomodation having been reached with the Revenue.
Held: The court declined to regard a promise to the Revenue by a company to pay its existing . .
Cited – Williams v Roffey Brothers and Nicholls (Contractors) Ltd CA 23-Nov-1989
The defendant subcontracted some of its work under a building contract to the plaintiff at a price which left him in financial difficulty and there was a risk that the work would not be completed by the plaintiff. The defendant agreed to make . .
Cited – Parties Named In Schedule A v Dresdner Kleinwort Ltd and Another QBD 28-May-2010
The defendant merchant banks resisted two group claims for annual bonuses for 2008 made by the employee claimants. They now sought summary judgment against the claims. The employer had declared a guaranteed minimum bonus pool available to make the . .
Cited – Mahmood v Vehicle Inspectorate Admn 5-Nov-1997
. .
Cited – Compagnie Noga D’Importation Et D’Exportation Sa v Abacha and others CA 23-Jul-2003
. .
Cited – South Caribbean Trading Ltd v Trafigura Beheer Bv ComC 22-Nov-2004
. .
Cited – Assi v Dina Foods Ltd QBD 20-May-2005
. .
Cited – Burt v Revenue and Customs SCIT 19-May-2008
SCIT Retirement relief – Completion of contract for sale of shares – Time of disposal – Equitable assignment – Whether English or Scots appeal. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment, Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.248378
The court considered the tort of deceit. A representation by one person that another person was creditworthy was actionable if made fraudulently. A false affirmation made by the defendant with intent to defraud the plaintiff, whereby the plaintiff receives damage, is the ground of an action upon the case in the nature of deceit. In such an action, it is not necessary that the defendant should be benefited by the deceit, or that he should collude with the person who is.
Buller J
(1789) 3 Durn and E 51, (1789) 3 Term Rep 5F, [1789] EngR 1703, (1789) 3 TR 51, (1789) 100 ER 450
Commonlii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Crosse v Gardner 1689
Holt CJ said: ‘an affirmation at the time of sale is a warranty, provided it appear on evidence to have been so intended.’ . .
Cited by:
Cited – Smith New Court Securities Ltd v Scrimgeour Vickers HL 21-Nov-1996
The defendant had made misrepresentations, inducing the claimant to enter into share transactions which he would not otherwise have entered into, and which lost money.
Held: A deceitful wrongdoer is properly liable for all actual damage . .
Cited – Hedley Byrne and Co Ltd v Heller and Partners Ltd HL 28-May-1963
Banker’s Liability for Negligent Reference
The appellants were advertising agents. They were liable themselves for advertising space taken for a client, and had sought a financial reference from the defendant bankers to the client. The reference was negligent, but the bankers denied any . .
Cited – Heilbut Symons and Co v Buckleton HL 11-Nov-1912
In an action of damages for fraudulent misrepresentation and breach of warranty, the plaintiff founded on a conversation between himself and the defendants’ representative. In this conversation the plaintiff said-‘I understand that you are bringing . .
Cited – Lyde v Barnard CExC 1836
Cited – Lindsay v O’Loughnane QBD 18-Mar-2010
lindsay_oloughnaneQBD11
The claimant had purchased Euros through a foreign exchange dealer. The dealer company became insolvent, causing losses to the claimant, who sought to recover from the company’s managing director, the defendant, saying that he was aware of the . .
Cited – Roder UK Ltd v West and Another CA 12-Oct-2011
The claimant sought to allege that the defendant company director was personally liable after misrepresentations as to the company’s creditworthiness in ordering goods when the defendant was really insolvent.
Held: The defendant’s appeal . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Torts – Other, Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.191183
Mr Addis was wrongfully and contumeliously dismissed from his post as the defendant’s manager in Calcutta. He sought additional damages for the manner of his dismissal.
Held: It did not matter whether the claim was under wrongful dismissal. There was a breach of contract in not allowing the plaintiff to discharge his duties as manager, and the damages were the same, the salary to which the plaintiff was entitled for the six months and the commission he would have earned had he been allowed to continue. The manner of dismissal does not affect these damages. Where a servant is wrongfully dismissed from his employment the damages for the dismissal cannot include compensation for the manner of the dismissal, for his injured feelings, or for the loss he may sustain from the fact that the dismissal of itself makes it more difficult for him to obtain fresh employment.
Lord Loreburn LC said that an employee cannot recover damages for the manner in which the wrongful dismissal took place, for injured feelings or for any loss he may sustain from the fact that his having been dismissed of itself makes it more difficult for him to obtain fresh employment.
Lord Atkinson – An aggrieved party to a contract ‘is to be paid adequate compensation in money for the loss of that which he would have received had his contract been kept, and nothing more.’
Lord Shaw – ‘Suppose that slander or libel accompanied the dismissal, nothing, as I understand, is here decided to the effect that the slander or libel, which is cognisable by law as a good and separate ground of action, suffers either merger or extinction by reason of proceedings in respect of the breach of contract which such slander or libel accompanied.’
Lord Loreburn LC, Lord Atkinson, Lord Gorrell and Lord Shaw of Dunfermline
[1909] AC 488, [1909] UKHL 1, [1909] UKHL 564
Bailii, Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Distinguished – Malik v Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI); Mahmud v Bank of Credit and Commerce International HL 12-Jun-1997
Allowance of Stigma Damages
The employees claimed damages, saying that the way in which their employer had behaved during their employment had led to continuing losses, ‘stigma damages’ after the termination.
Held: It is an implied term of any contract of employment that . .
Explained – Johnson v Unisys Ltd HL 23-Mar-2001
The claimant contended for a common law remedy covering the same ground as the statutory right available to him under the Employment Rights Act 1996 through the Employment Tribunal system.
Held: The statutory system for compensation for unfair . .
Cited – Dunnachie v Kingston Upon Hull City Council; Williams v Southampton Institute; Dawson v Stonham Housing Association EAT 8-Apr-2003
EAT Unfair Dismissal – Compensation
In each case, The employee sought additional damages for non-economic loss after an unfair dismissal.
Held: The Act could be compared with the Discrimination Acts . .
Considered – Ruxley Electronics and Construction Ltd v Forsyth HL 29-Jun-1995
Damages on Construction not as Agreed
The appellant had contracted to build a swimming pool for the respondent, but, after agreeing to alter the specification to construct it to a certain depth, in fact built it to the original lesser depth, Damages had been awarded to the house owner . .
Cited – Hamilton Jones v David and Snape (a Firm) ChD 19-Dec-2003
The claimant was represented by the respondent firm of solicitors in an action for custody of her children. Through their negligence the children had been removed from the country. She sought damages for the distress of losing her children.
Cited – Dunnachie v Kingston Upon Hull City Council CA 11-Feb-2004
Compensation for non-economic loss brought about by the manner of an unfair dismissal is, on authority and on principle, recoverable. The award of such compensation by the employment tribunal in the present case was not excessive and was adequately . .
Cited – Eastwood and another v Magnox Electric plc; McCabe v Cornwall County Council and others HL 15-Jul-2004
The first claimants were long standing employees. Mr Eastwood fell out with his manager, who disciplined him using false statements. When Williams refused to provide a false statement he too was disciplined. Each claimed damages for the injury to . .
Cited – Wiseman v Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd QBD 29-Jun-2006
The claimant said that he was refused permission to board a flight by the defendants representative without paying a bribe, and was publicly humiliated for not doing so.
Held: Whilst the claimant could recover for his own additional expenses, . .
Cited – Johnson v Gore Wood and Co HL 14-Dec-2000
Shareholder May Sue for Additional Personal Losses
A company brought a claim of negligence against its solicitors, and, after that claim was settled, the company’s owner brought a separate claim in respect of the same subject-matter.
Held: It need not be an abuse of the court for a shareholder . .
Cited – Norton Tool Co Ltd v Tewson NIRC 30-Oct-1972
(National Industrial Relations Court) The court was asked to calculate damages on a dismissal, and particularly as to whether the manner of the dismissal should affect the damages.
Held: The common law rules and authorities on wrongful . .
Cited – Grobbelaar v News Group Newspapers Ltd and Another CA 18-Jan-2001
The claimant had been awarded andpound;85,000 damages in defamation after the defendant had wrongly accused him of cheating at football. The newspaper sought to appeal saying that the verdict was perverse and the defence of qualified privilege . .
Cited – GAB Robins (UK) Ltd v Triggs CA 30-Jan-2008
The claimant had been awarded damages for unfair constructive dismissal. The employer appealed an award of damages for the period prior to the acceptance by the employee of the repudiatory breach.
Held: Where a claimant’s losses arose before . .
Cited – Edwards v Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust CA 26-May-2010
The claimant, a consultant doctor, sought damages saying that his employer had failed to follow the contract when disciplining and dismissing him. The GMC had dismissed as unfounded the allegation on which the dismissal was based. He sought damages . .
Cited – Edwards v Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust CA 26-May-2010
The claimant, a consultant doctor, sought damages saying that his employer had failed to follow the contract when disciplining and dismissing him. The GMC had dismissed as unfounded the allegation on which the dismissal was based. He sought damages . .
Cited – Edwards v Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust SC 14-Dec-2011
The claimant had been employed as consultant surgeon. He had been dismissed in a manner inconsistent with the extress terms of his employment contract. He sought common law damages for the manner of his dismissal. The employer appealed.
Held: . .
Cited – Kpohraror v Woolwich Building Society CA 1996
The Society, acting as a bank, had at first failed to pay its customer’s cheque for andpound;4,550, even though there were sufficient funds. The bank said that it had been reported lost. The customer sought damages to his business reputation.
Employment, Contract, Damages
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.182098
An application was made for rectification of a rent review clause in a lease. When executing the lease, the tenants’ officer, Mr Avon, noticed that the rent review clause in the lease drafted by the landlords was defective in not including a provision in default of agreement. The trial judge held that the conduct of Mr Avon, who had not given evidence, amounted to sharp practice.
Held: The tenants knew of the omission and of the landlords’ mistake. When establishing the right to rectification of a document, the claimant does not have to meet more than the civil standard of balance of probabilities, but convincing proof is required to counteract the cogent evidence of the parties’ intention displayed by the instrument.
Referring to Riverlake, Buckley LJ said: ‘Undoubtedly I think in any such case the conduct of the defendant must be such as to make it inequitable that he should be allowed to object to the rectification of the document. If this necessarily implies some measure of ‘sharp practice’, so be it; but for my part I think that the doctrine is one which depends more on the equity of the position. The graver the character of the conduct involved, no doubt the heavier the burden of proof may be; but, in my view, the conduct must be such as to affect the conscience of the party who has suppressed the fact that he has recognised the presence of a mistake.
For this doctrine – that is to say the doctrine of A Roberts v Leicestershire County Council – to apply I think it must be shown: first, that one party A erroneously believed that the document sought to be rectified contained a particular term or provision, or possibly did not contain a particular term or provision which, mistakenly, it did contain; secondly, that the other party B was aware of the omission or the inclusion and that it was due to a mistake on the part of A; thirdly, that B has omitted to draw the mistake to the notice of A. And I think there must be a fourth element involved, namely, that the mistake must be one calculated to benefit B. If these requirements are satisfied, the court may regard it as inequitable to allow B to resist rectification to give effect to A’s intention on the ground that the mistake was not, at the time of execution of the document, a mutual mistake.’
As to the burden of proof: ‘The standard of proof required in an action of rectification to establish the common intention of the parties is, in my view, the civil standard of balance of probability. But as the alleged common intention ex hypothesi contradicts the written instrument, convincing proof is required in order to counteract the cogent evidence of the parties’ intention displayed by the instrument itself. It is not, I think, the standard of proof which is high, so differing from the normal civil standard, but the evidential requirement needed to counteract the inherent probability that the written instrument truly represents the parties’ intention because it is a document signed by the parties. The standard of proof is no different in a case of so-called unilateral mistake such as the present.’
Buckley LJ, Brightman LJ
[1981] 1 WLR 505, [1980] EWCA Civ 3, [1981] 1 All ER 1077
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – A Roberts and Co Ltd v Leicestershire County Council ChD 1961
The court considered the circumstances required for rectification of a contract after a unilateral mistake. Pennycuick J said: ‘a party is entitled to rectification of a contract upon proof that he believed a particular term to be included in the . .
Cited – Riverlate Properties Ltd v Paul CA 1974
A lessor sought to have the lease rectified against the tenant, saying the tenant had sufficient knowledge of the error in the lease to permit that remedy.
Held: The tenant had no such knowledge as would have brought the doctrine into play. In . .
Cited by:
Cited – AMP (UK) Plc and Another v Barker and Others ChD 8-Dec-2000
The claimants were interested under a pension scheme. Alterations had been made, which the said had been in error, and they sought rectification to remove a link between early leaver benefits and incapacity benefits. The defendant trustees agreed . .
Approved – George Wimpey UK Ltd v VI Construction Ltd CA 3-Feb-2005
A land purchase contract had been rectified by the judge for unilateral mistake. A factor had been dropped from a formula for calculating the price.
Held: The judge’s conclusion that the circumstances existed to allow a rectification was . .
Cited – Littman, Young v Aspen Oil (Broking) Ltd ChD 1-Jul-2005
The tenant sought to exercise a break clause in the lease. The landlord said that the exercise of the right was subject to the tenant having first complied with the terms of the lease.
Held: There was an obvious mistake in the clause which . .
Cited – Littman and Another v Aspen Oil (Broking) Ltd CA 19-Dec-2005
A lease had been granted with a break clause, which the tenant exercised. The Landlord said it had not complied with its obligations and was not free to exercise that clause. The clause had included the word ‘landlord’ where it should have read . .
Cited – Connolly Ltd v Bellway Homes Ltd ChD 23-Apr-2007
connolly_bellwayChD2007
The claimant sought rectification of a contract for the sale of land, or damages in deceit. They said that it had been agreed that the price would be adjusted to reflect any change in values. The formula inserted made no great sense mathematically, . .
Cited – Daventry District Council v Daventry and District Housing Ltd CA 13-Oct-2011
The appellant challenged refusal of rectification of its agreement with the defendant. They asserted either mutual or unilateral mistake. The parties had agreed for the transfer of housing stock and management staff to the respondents. The claimant . .
Cited – FSHC Group Holdings Ltd v Glas Trust Corporation Ltd CA 31-Jul-2019
Rectification – Chartbrook not followed
Opportunity for an appellate court to clarify the correct test to apply in deciding whether the written terms of a contract may be rectified because of a common mistake.
Held: The appeal failed. The judge was right to conclude that an . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Equity, Landlord and Tenant, Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.184572
The applicant had complained of unfair dismissal.The employment contract had been dressed as a self employed service provider’s contract to privide him with tax, and was unlawfully so. The employer appealed, saying that as an unlawful contract, the court should not support it.
Held: The company’s appeal failed. The lower tribunal had correctly concluded that he was employed under a contract of service. It would not be contrary to pubic policy to allow an employee to withdraw from an unlawful contract.
Ackner LJ said: ‘It is by now well settled that the label which the parties choose to use to describe their relationship cannot alter or decide their true relationship; but in deciding what their relationship is, the expression by them of their true intention is relevant but not conclusive. Its importance may vary according to the facts of the case.’
Stephenson LJ said:
‘[T]he Master of the Rolls [in Massey] appears to be saying that, when an agreement is made for a man to be self-employed, that affords strong evidence that that is the real relationship; and he may be saying that, if such an agreement is found, the man must accept it. He cannot afterwards assert that he was only a servant. On the other hand, it may be that the Master of the Rolls meant that, if the evidence is strong enough to show that a contract for services is the real relationship and that is found to be the real relationship, then the man must accept it. I do not myself find the words entirely clear but, read in their context – which itself clearly indicates considerable sympathy with dissenting view expressed by Lord Justice Lawton in the Ferguson case [Ferguson v John Dawson and Partners (Contractors) Ltd [1976] IRLR 346] – I do not think that they would justify me in concluding that wherever there is an agreement openly made that a particular person shall be treated by a company as self-employed, it follows that he must accept the position and cannot claim compensation for unfair dismissal as if he was not self-employed but an employee. It must be the court’s duty to see whether the label correctly represents the true legal relationship between the parties in that case as in every other.
. . Then the learned Lord Justice [Lawton] went on to consider the facts of the case and to find that that was not, on the facts of that case, so. Lord Justice Eveleigh agreed with both judgments.
It is nowhere stated by Lord Justice Lawton in the judgment which he gave that an agreed change in the status of a person or an agreed choice of status necessarily determines that status and prevents that person from resiling from his choice or from pursuing what would appear to be a remedy completely inconsistent wit the choice that he has deliberately made.
Fairness and justice have throughout incline me to accept the minority view in this case. If Mr West chooses to call himself self-employed for fiscal advantages which are denied to an employee, why should he claim the advantage of statutory rights which are available to an employee but denied to the self-employed? And why should the agreement of employers to treat him as self-employed make any difference to the injustice or unfairness of his having both advantages? But, in my judgment, the answer is that he and his work should be classified not by appearance but by reality. If he is really self-employed the Industrial Tribunal should refuse to consider his statutory rights as an employee. If he is really an employee or servant the Inland Revenue should reclaim tax deductions which have been granted to him as self-employed; and, if this court declares that the true legal position between him and his employers is not in accordance with the agreement deliberately chosen by the parties and put before them for their information, I do not suppose that the Inland Revenue would fail to discharge their statutory duty.
But I have come to the conclusion that the minority view cannot prevail. I have come to the conclusion that the decision of the Industrial Tribunal was right and that the true legal relationship of the parties was not that of a self-employed agent working independently for this company.’
Ackner, Stephenson LJJ, Sir David Cairns
[1980] IRLR 201, [1980] EWCA Civ 6
Bailii
Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978 54(1)
England and Wales
Citing:
Applied – Market Investigations v Minister of Social Security 1969
One way of deciding whether a person is self employed is to ask whether he can be said to be running a business of his own. Different tests may have to be combined to produce an overall answer.
Cooke J said: ‘The fundamental test to be applied . .
Cited – Massey v Crown Life Insurance Company CA 4-Nov-1977
Massey worked as Crown Life’s manager under 2 contracts, one a contract of employment, the other a contract of general agency. Tax and other contributions were deducted from wages paid under the former, while commission was paid under the agency . .
Cited by:
Cited – Brook Street Bureau (UK) Ltd v Dacas CA 5-Mar-2004
The applicant cleaner sought compensation for unfair dismissal. The issue was whether she was an employee of the respondents, of their client where she did her work, or was not an employee at all. She worked for an agency, who sent her out to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment, Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.194292
An opera singer (Miss Wagner) and the defendant theatre owner were joint wrongdoers. They had a common design that the opera singer should break her contract with the plaintiff theatre owner, refuse to sing in the plaintiff’s theatre and instead sing in the defendant’s theatre. The plaintiff’s cause of action against the opera singer lay in contract, and the plaintiff’s cause of action against the defendant lay in tort.
Held: The opera singer and the defendant were joint wrongdoers participating in an unlawful common design. An actionable wrong is committed by a person deliberately inducing a party to a contract to breach it. A person who procures another to commit a wrong incurs liability as an accessory.
Erle J said: ‘It is clear that the procurement of the violation of a right is a cause of action in all instances where the violation is an actionable wrong, as in violations of a right to property, whether real or personal, or to personal security: he who procures the wrong is a joint wrongdoer, and may be sued, either alone or jointly with the agent, in the appropriate action for the wrong complained of. Where a right to the performance of a contract has been violated by a breach thereof, the remedy is upon the contract, against the contracting party; and, if he made to indemnify for such breach, no further recourse is allowed; and, as in a case of the procurement of a breach of contract, the action is for a wrong and cannot be joined with the action on the contract, and as the act itself is not likely to be of frequent occurrence nor easy of proof, therefore the action for this wrong, in respect of other contracts than those of hiring, are not numerous; but still they seem to me sufficient to show that the principle has been recognised.’ and ‘He who maliciously procures a damage to another by violation of his right ought to be made to indemnify; and that, whether he procures an actionable wrong or a breach of contract.’
Erle J
(1853) 2 E and B 216, [1853] EngR 15, (1853) 2 El and Bl 216, (1853) 118 ER 749, [1853] EWHC QB J73
Commonlii, Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
See Also – Lumley v Wagner 1852
A girl (under age) and her father contracted for her to perform at a theatre abroad, and later not to use her talents without the consent of her manager. She contracted with a competing theatre. She resisted an action by the manager saying that the . .
Cited by:
Cited – Generale Bank Nederland Nv (Formerly Credit Lyonnais Bank Nederland Nv) v Export Credits Guarantee Department HL 19-Feb-1999
The wrong of the servant or agent for which the master or principal is liable is one committed in the case of a servant in the course of his employment, and in the case of an agent in the course of his authority. It is fundamental to the whole . .
Cited – CBS Songs Ltd v Amstrad Consumer Electronics Plc HL 12-May-1988
The plaintiffs as representatives sought to restrain Amstrad selling equipment with two cassette decks without taking precautions which would reasonably ensure that their copyrights would not be infringed by its users.
Held: Amstrad could only . .
Cited – OBG Ltd OBG (Plant and Transport Hire) Ltd v Raymond International Ltd; OBG Ltd v Allen CA 9-Feb-2005
The defendants had wrongfully appointed receivers of the claimant, who then came into the business and terminated contracts undertaken by the business. The claimant asserted that their actions amounted to a wrongful interference in their contracts . .
Extended – Torquay Hotel v Cousins CA 17-Dec-1968
The plaintiff contracted to buy oil for his hotel from Esso. Members of the defendant trades union blocked the deliveries of oil by Esso to the Hotel because of a trade dispute they had with the management of the hotel. The hotel sued for an . .
Distinguished – Allen v Flood HL 14-Dec-1898
Tort of Malicicious Inducement not Committed
Mr Flood had in the course of his duties as a trade union official told the employers of some ironworkers that the ironworkers would go on strike, unless the employers ceased employing some woodworkers, who the ironworkers believed had worked on . .
Cited – Belegging-en Exploitatiemaatschappij Lavender BV v Witten Industrial Diamonds Ltd 1979
The defendants sold diamond grit allegedly for the sole purpose of making grinding tools in which it was to be embedded in a resin bond as part of a grinding material patented by the plaintiffs.
Held: The defendants could not be infringers . .
Cited – MCA Records Inc and Another v Charly Records Ltd and others (No 5) CA 5-Oct-2001
The court discussed the personal liability of a director for torts committed by his company: ‘i) a director will not be treated as liable with the company as a joint tortfeasor if he does no more than carry out his constitutional role in the . .
Cited – Douglas and others v Hello! Ltd and others; similar HL 2-May-2007
In Douglas, the claimants said that the defendants had interfered with their contract to provide exclusive photographs of their wedding to a competing magazine, by arranging for a third party to infiltrate and take and sell unauthorised photographs. . .
See Also – Lumley v Gye (2) 14-Jan-1854
A commission, under stat. 1 W. 4, c. 22, S. 4, issued at the instance of the defendant, directed to an English barrister, to examine witnesses in Germany. The witness, a Prussian subject, being at Berlin, the commissiotier went thither, but learned . .
Cited – Vertical Leisure Ltd v Poleplus Ltd and Another IPEC 27-Mar-2015
Claims were made alleging infringement of domain name and trade mark rights in accessories for use with pole dancing kits. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Torts – Other
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.183576
The parties were former members of a band, the Sex Pistols. They disputed the continued duty to accept the decision of the majority of its members as set out in a Band Membership Agreement. Mr Lydon asserted that over the years the obligation had been overridden, establishing certain estoppels in his favour.
Held: After consideration of the many events, it was not established as asserted by Mr Lydon that the agreement has been overridden in such a way as to give rise to an estoppel, and the action failed. The defendant’s application to amend his pleadings also failed.
Sir Anthony Mann
[2021] EWHC 2321 (Ch)
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – HM Revenue and Customs v Benchdollar Ltd and Others ChD 11-Jun-2009
Limitation and estoppel in claims for arrears of national insurance contributions
Briggs J said: ‘In my judgment, the principles applicable to the assertion of an estoppel by convention arising out of non-contractual dealings . . are as . .
Cited – Tinkler v Revenue and Customs SC 30-Jul-2021
Whether the Respondent is estopped by convention from denying that HMRC had opened a valid enquiry when HMRC had sent the notice to the wrong address and the Respondent’s accountants had interacted with HMRC on the basis an enquiry had been . .
Cited – Hiscox v Outhwaite (No 1) HL 29-Jul-1991
An arbitration award is perfected in the place where the arbitrator signs it, irrespective of where the arbitration to place. If the award is signed in a country party to the 1958 convention, being and forcible as a conventional Ward under the . .
Cited – Republic of India and Another v India Steamship Co Ltd (Indian Endurance and Indian Grace) (No 2) HL 23-Oct-1997
When a action in rem against a ship was in fact parallel to an action in personam begun in India and awaiting a decision; an action was not to be allowed here.
Lord Steyn: ‘It is settled that an estoppel by convention may arise where parties to . .
Cited – Hamel-Smith v Pycroft and Jetsave Ltd 5-Feb-1987
Peter Gibson J sad: ‘Thus the court is not so rigid and inflexible as to insist on the parties being held to an assumed and incorrect state of fact or law when there is no injustice in allowing a party to resile therefrom (see, for example, Multon . .
Cited – Spliethoff’s Bevrachtingskantoor Bv v Bank of China Ltd ComC 17-Apr-2015
Claims under refund guarantees
Carr J DBE said: ‘The legal requirements of an estoppel by representation of fact are well known: (i) a representation which is in law deemed a representation of fact, (ii) that the precise representation was in . .
Cited – Harvey v Dunbar Assets Plc CA 13-Feb-2017
This appeal raises an issue of principle in the law of bankruptcy on which there is no previous authority directly in point. If:
(a) a debtor’s application to set aside a statutory demand (‘SD1’) is dismissed on the merits, by application of . .
Cited – Su Ling v Goldman Sachs International ComC 26-Mar-2015
Application for leave to amend particulars of claim.
Carr J set out the principal factors which the court should take into account on an application to amend: ‘a) whether to allow an amendment is a matter for the discretion of the court. In . .
Cited – Liberty Insurance Pte Ltd and Another v Argo Systems Fze CA 15-Dec-2011
‘Saying nothing and ‘standing by’, ie. doing nothing, are, to my mind, equivocal actions. This court has stated that, in the absence of special circumstances, silence and inaction are, when objectively considered, equivocal and cannot, of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Estoppel
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.667370
Action as to alleged breach of condition of contract for the purchase of the site of Bristol Rovers football stadium.
Laws, Mccombe, Floyd LJJ
[2016] EWCA Civ 160
Bailii
England and Wales
Contract
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.561205
55 houses had been built by the defendant, knowingly in breach of a restrictive covenant, imposed for the benefit of an estate, and in the face of objections by the claimant.
Held: The restrictive covenant not to develop other than in accordance with an agreed lay-out plan was valid. It remained, or had not been shown not to remain, capable of being of benefit to the dominant estate, but the court refused injunctions against developers for breach of the injunction (and retained ownership of the roads) and against house-purchasers because it would be an unpardonable waste of much needed houses to pull them down. No damage of a financial nature had been done to the plaintiffs by breach of the lay-out stipulation. The absence of financially measurable loss flowing from a breach of contract was not necessarily fatal to a claimant’s claim for compensation. It would be unjust that the defendants should ‘be left in undisturbed possession of the fruits of their wrongdoing’ merely because the court considered it wasteful to issue an injunction ordering the demolition of the houses. The court awarded damages as a substitute for an injunction. The damages were measured as the amount that might reasonably have been demanded by the plaintiff as payment for relaxing the covenant – five per cent of the developer’s anticipated profit.
Brightman J said: ‘I turn to the consideration of the quantum of damages. I was asked by the parties to assess the damages myself, should the question arise, rather than to direct an inquiry. The basic rule in contract is to measure damages by that sum of money which will put the plaintiff in the same position as he would have been in if the contract had not been broken. From that basis, the defendants argue that the damages are nil or purely nominal, because the value of the Wrotham Park Estate as the plaintiffs concede is not diminished by one farthing in consequence of the construction of a road and the erection of 14 houses on the allotment site. If, therefore, the defendants submit, I refuse an injunction I ought to award no damages in lieu. That would seem, on the face of it, a result of questionable fairness on the facts of this case. Had the offending development been the erection of an advertisement hoarding in defiance of protest and writ, I apprehend (assuming my conclusions on other points to be correct) that the court would not have hesitated to grant a mandatory injunction for its removal. If, for social and economic reasons, the court does not see fit in the exercise of its discretion, to order demolition of the 14 houses, is it just that the plaintiffs should receive no compensation and that the defendants should be left in undisturbed possession of the fruits of their wrongdoing? Common sense would seem to demand a negative answer to this question’.
And ‘In the present case I am faced with the problem what damages ought to be awarded to the plaintiffs in the place of mandatory injunctions which would have restored the plaintiffs’ rights. If the plaintiffs are merely given a nominal sum, or no sum, in substitution for injunctions, it seems to me that justice will manifestly not have been done.
As I have said, the general rule would be to measure damages by reference to that sum which would place the plaintiffs in the same position as if the covenant had not been broken. Parkside and the individual purchasers could have avoided breaking the covenant in two ways. One course would have been not to develop the allotment site. The other course would have been for Parkside to have sought from the plaintiffs a relaxation of the covenant. On the facts of this particular case the plaintiffs, rightly conscious of their obligations towards existing residents, would clearly not have granted any relaxation, but for present purposes I must assume that it could have been induced to do so. In my judgment a just substitute for a mandatory injunction would be such a sum of money as might reasonably have been demanded by the plaintiffs from Parkside as a quid pro quo for relaxing the covenant.’
Brightman J
[1974] 1 WLR 798, [1974] 2 All ER 321
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Whitwham v Westminster Brymbo Coal and Coke Co CA 24-Jun-1896
Common law damages for the misuse of property involved an award of a sum equivalent to the price or hire that a reasonable person would pay for such use, even if the owner would not himself actually have been using the property. This case involved . .
Cited – Shelfer v City of London Electric Lighting Company, Meux’s Brewery Co v Same CA 1895
The plaintiff sought damages and an injunction for nuisance by noise and vibration which was causing structural injury to a public house.
Held: The court set out the rules for when a court should not grant an injunction for an infringement of . .
Cited by:
Cited – Experience Hendrix LLC v PPX Enterprises Inc and Another CA 20-Mar-2003
The claimant had obtained an interim injunction against the defendant for copyright infringement, though it could show no losses. It now sought additionally damages. The defendant argued that it could not have both.
Held: The case arose form . .
Preferred – HM Attorney General v Blake (Jonathan Cape Ltd third Party intervening) HL 3-Aug-2000
Restitutionary Claim against Pofits from Breach
The author had written his book in breach of his duty of confidence. Having signed the Official Secrets Act, he accepted a contractual private law duty. After conviction as a spy, the publication of the book was in breach of the undertaking by not . .
Cited – Wrotham Park Settled Estates v Hertsmere Borough Council CA 12-Apr-1993
Land had been purchased under compulsory purchase powers. It had been subject to restrictive covenants in favour of neighbouring land which would have prevented the development now implemented. The question was how the compensation should be . .
Cited – Surrey County Council and Mole District Council v Bredero Homes Ltd ChD 1992
Land was agreed to be sold for development in accordance with an existing planning permission. Instead a later permission was obtained, and more houses were built. The plaintiff had not sought to restrain or prevent the breach, but now sought . .
Considered – Surrey County Council v Bredero Homes Ltd CA 7-Apr-1993
A local authority had sold surplus land to a developer and obtained a covenant that the developer would develop the land in accordance with an existing planning permission. The sole purpose of the local authority in imposing the covenant was to . .
Applied – Tito v Waddell (No 2); Tito v Attorney General ChD 1977
Equity applies its doctrines to the substance, not the form, of transactions. In respect of the rule against self dealing for trustees ‘But of course equity looks beneath the surface, and applies its doctrines to cases where, although in form a . .
Distinguished – Bracewell v Appleby ChD 1975
The defendant wrongly used and asserted a right of way over a private road to a house which he had built.
Held: To restrain the defendant from using the road would render the new house uninhabitable. The court refused an injunction on the . .
Cited – Carr-Saunders v Dick McNeill Associates 1986
The claim was for interference with the plaintiff’s right to light.
Held: There is a need to approach infringements of easements of light with flexibility. The plaintiff’s subjective views as to the loss of light were not to the point. When . .
Cited – Severn Trent Water Ltd v Barnes CA 13-May-2004
The water company appealed an award of damages after it had been found to have laid a water main under the claimant’s land without his knowledge or consent. The court had awarded restitutionary damages.
Held: The judge fell into error in . .
Approved – Jaggard v Sawyer and Another CA 18-Jul-1994
Recovery of damages after Refusal of Injunction
The plaintiff appealed against the award of damages instead of an injunction aftter the County court had found the defendant to have trespassed on his land by a new building making use of a private right of way.
Held: The appeal failed.
Cited – Feakins and Another v Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Civ 1513) CA 9-Dec-2005
The department complained that the defendants had entered into a transaction with their farm at an undervalue so as to defeat its claim for recovery of sums due. The transaction used the grant of a tenancy by the first chargee.
Held: The . .
Cited – Small v Oliver and Saunders (Developments) Ltd ChD 25-May-2006
The claimant said his property had the benefit of covenants in a building scheme so as to allow him to object to the building of an additional house on a neighbouring plot in breach of a covenant to build only one house on the plot. Most but not all . .
Cited – Regan v Paul Properties DPF No 1 Ltd and others ChD 27-Jul-2006
The claimant sought an injunction claiming that new building works were a nuisance in breaching his rights of light.
Held: The claim for an injunction failed. Whatever may be the position in cases of other wrongful conduct, in the case of an . .
Cited – WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) and Another v World Wrestling Federation Entertainment Inc CA 2-Apr-2007
The parties had disputed use of the initals WWF, with a compromise reached in 1994 allowing primary use by the Fund with restricted use by the Federation. The Federation now appealed an award of damages made after a finding of a breach of the . .
Cited – Tamares (Vincent Square) Ltd. v Fairpoint Properties (Vincent Square) Ltd ChD 8-Feb-2007
The defendant had been found liable for infringing the claimant’s right of light. The court considered the proper measure of damages.
Held: The court should ask what might be the fair result of a hypothetical negiation for the sale of the . .
Cited – Harris v Williams-Wynne ChD 11-Feb-2005
The parties agreed in sale agreement for a plot of land that the buyer would not erect any additional building. He did so, and when he came to try to sell it the original vendor objected. The purchaser’s solicitors registered the agreement for sale. . .
Cited – Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council v Alwiyah Developments CA 1983
There was to be a development of six flats on land subject to a restrictive covenant. The developer began without a modification being sought. The benefit of the covenant was attached to adjoining land owned by the local authority, which they . .
Cited – Winter and Another v Traditional and Contemporary Contracts Ltd CA 7-Nov-2007
The land-owners applied for a variation of a restrictive covenant to allow them to put a second house on their plot. They had bought out the right of the original builder, but a neighbour also had the benefit of the covenant. They now appealed the . .
Explained – Stoke-on-Trent City Council v W and J Wass Ltd CA 1988
The council had operated open markets on its land under statutory authority. In breach of the statute, the defendant operated a market on a different day, but within the excluded area. This was a nuisance actionable on proof of damage. The council . .
Cited – Devenish Nutrition Ltd v Sanofi-Aventis Sa (France) and others CA 14-Oct-2008
The defendant had been involved in price fixing arrangements, and the claimant sought damages for breach of its proprietary rights. The claimant appealed refusal of an award an account of profits for what was akin to a breach of statutory duty.
Cited – Star Energy Weald Basin Ltd and Another v Bocardo Sa SC 28-Jul-2010
The defendant had obtained a licence to extract oil from its land. In order to do so it had to drill out and deep under the Bocardo’s land. No damage at all was caused to B’s land at or near the surface. B claimed in trespass for damages. It now . .
Cited – Jones and Another v Ruth and Another CA 12-Jul-2011
The parties were neighbours. The claimants succeeded in their assertion of trespass and nuisance in building works carried out by the defendant. The claimant appealed against the judge’s failure to award damages for harassment, saying that though . .
Cited – HKRUK II (CHC) Ltd v Heaney ChD 3-Sep-2010
The claimant sought a declaration that its property was free of a suggested right of light in favour of its neighbour . .
Cited – One Step (Support) Ltd v Morris-Garner and Another QBD 7-Jul-2014
The defendant had sold her interest in the claimant company, undertaking not to compete. The claimant now sought damages alleging a breach.
Held: The defendants had acted in breach of contract by breaching the non-compete covenants (although . .
Cited – Morris-Garner and Another v One Step (Support) Ltd CA 22-Mar-2016
Alleged breach of non-solicitation covenants in the sale of a business providing ‘supported living’ services for children leaving care and vulnerable adults.
Held: The defendant’s appeal was dismissed.
The test was whether an award of . .
Cited – Morris-Garner and Another v One Step (Support) Ltd SC 18-Apr-2018
The Court was asked in what circumstances can damages for breach of contract be assessed by reference to the sum that the claimant could hypothetically have received in return for releasing the defendant from the obligation which he failed to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Damages, Land
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.180884
The author had written his book in breach of his duty of confidence. Having signed the Official Secrets Act, he accepted a contractual private law duty. After conviction as a spy, the publication of the book was in breach of the undertaking by not first seeking authority to publish.
Held: In a case where the usual remedies for breach of contract were insufficient, it was possible to make an order which would remove from the person in breach of contract, the benefits of the breach. In these circumstances, it was appropriate to award a sum equal to the amount of royalties he would receive from his publisher. The law now recognises a restitutionary claim for profits made from a breach of contract in cases of ‘skimped’ performance, and cases where the defendant obtained his profit by doing ‘the very thing’ he contracted not to do, as here.
Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead Lord Goff of Chieveley Lord Browne-Wilkinson Lord Steyn Lord Hobhouse of Wood-borough
Gazette 17-Aug-2000, Times 03-Aug-2000, [2000] UKHL 45, [2000] 4 All ER 385, [2000] 3 WLR 625, [2001] 1 AC 268
House of Lords, Bailii
Official Secrets Act 1911
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Halifax Building Society v Thomas and Another CA 29-Jun-1995
Defrauded Mortgagee cannot take surplus on sale
A Building Society cannot keep any excess proceeds of sale of a house mortgaged to it by fraud. Policy was against unjust enrichment and will not allow a lender to take a profit from a fraudulent borrower.
Peter Gibson LJ said: ‘I remain wholly . .
Cited – Hogg v Kirby 15-Mar-1803
Injunction to restrain publishing a Magazine as a continuation of the Plaintiff’s Magazine in numbers, and as to communications from correspondents, received by the Defendant while publishing for the Plaintiff ; not preventing the publication of an . .
Cited – Lever v Goodwin CA 1887
In trade mark and patent cases the plaintiff was entitled, if he succeeded in getting an injunction, to take either of two forms of relief: he might claim from the defendant either the damage he had sustained from the defendant’s wrongful act or the . .
Cited – Leeds Industrial Co-operative Society Ltd v Slack HL 1924
The plaintiff complained of a threatened interference with ancient lights.
Held: Damages may be awarded in lieu of an injunction even where the injunction sought is a quia timet injunction, but that power imports a further power to give an . .
Cited – Robinson v Harman 18-Jan-1848
Damages for breach of contract should compensate the victim of the breach for the loss of his contractual bargain. Baron Parke said: ‘The next question is: What damages is the plaintiff entitled to recover? The rule of the common law is, that where . .
Cited – Beswick v Beswick HL 29-Jun-1967
The deceased had assigned his coal merchant business to the respondent against a promise to pay andpound;5.00 a week to his widow whilst she lived. The respondent appealed an order requiring him to make the payments, saying that as a consolidating . .
Preferred – Wrotham Park Estate Ltd v Parkside Homes Ltd ChD 1974
55 houses had been built by the defendant, knowingly in breach of a restrictive covenant, imposed for the benefit of an estate, and in the face of objections by the claimant.
Held: The restrictive covenant not to develop other than in . .
Disapproved – Surrey County Council v Bredero Homes Ltd CA 7-Apr-1993
A local authority had sold surplus land to a developer and obtained a covenant that the developer would develop the land in accordance with an existing planning permission. The sole purpose of the local authority in imposing the covenant was to . .
Cited – Reid-Newfoundland Co v Anglo-American Telegraph Co Ltd PC 1912
A railway company agreed not to transmit any commercial messages over a particular telegraph wire except for the benefit and account of the telegraph company.
Held: The railway company was liable to account as a trustee for the profits it . .
Cited – British Motor Trade Association v Gilbert 1951
The Association had attempted to control the price of cars in the context of statutory support. It was after the Second World war and new cars were in short supply. Buyers of new cars had to contract not to sell the car bought for two years without . .
Cited – Attorney General v De Keyser’s Royal Hotel Ltd HL 10-May-1920
A hotel had been requisitioned during the war for defence purposes. The owner claimed compensation. The AG argued that the liability to pay compensation had been displaced by statute giving the Crown the necessary powers.
Held: There is an . .
Cited by:
Cited – Experience Hendrix LLC v PPX Enterprises Inc and Another CA 20-Mar-2003
The claimant had obtained an interim injunction against the defendant for copyright infringement, though it could show no losses. It now sought additionally damages. The defendant argued that it could not have both.
Held: The case arose form . .
Cited – Design Progression Limited v Thurloe Properties Limited ChD 25-Feb-2004
The tenant applied for a licence to assign. The landlord failed to reply, anticipating that delay would allow it to generate a better lease renewal.
Held: The delay was unreasonable and a breach of the landlord’s statutory duty, and was an act . .
Cited – Severn Trent Water Ltd v Barnes CA 13-May-2004
The water company appealed an award of damages after it had been found to have laid a water main under the claimant’s land without his knowledge or consent. The court had awarded restitutionary damages.
Held: The judge fell into error in . .
Cited – Borders (UK) Ltd and others v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and Another CA 3-Mar-2005
The second defendant had received large numbers of stolen books and sold them from his stall. An application for compensation was made at his trial. Compensatory and exemplary damages were sought, but the court had to consider how to estimate the . .
Cited – WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) and Another v World Wrestling Federation Entertainment Inc CA 2-Apr-2007
The parties had disputed use of the initals WWF, with a compromise reached in 1994 allowing primary use by the Fund with restricted use by the Federation. The Federation now appealed an award of damages made after a finding of a breach of the . .
Cited – Harris v Williams-Wynne ChD 11-Feb-2005
The parties agreed in sale agreement for a plot of land that the buyer would not erect any additional building. He did so, and when he came to try to sell it the original vendor objected. The purchaser’s solicitors registered the agreement for sale. . .
Cited – Brennan v National Westminster Bank Plc QBD 27-Nov-2007
The claimant, a customer of the defendant had been charged sums when he went overdrawn beyond his limit. He claimed that the sums were unlawful penalties under the Regulations. The bank said that it had refunded the charges. The claimant sought . .
Cited – Grobbelaar v News Group Newspapers Ltd and Another CA 18-Jan-2001
The claimant had been awarded andpound;85,000 damages in defamation after the defendant had wrongly accused him of cheating at football. The newspaper sought to appeal saying that the verdict was perverse and the defence of qualified privilege . .
Cited – Mohamed, Regina (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (No 1) Admn 21-Aug-2008
The claimant had been detained by the US in Guantanamo Bay suspected of terrorist involvement. He sought to support his defence documents from the respondent which showed that the evidence to be relied on in the US courts had been obtained by . .
Cited – Devenish Nutrition Ltd v Sanofi-Aventis Sa (France) and others CA 14-Oct-2008
The defendant had been involved in price fixing arrangements, and the claimant sought damages for breach of its proprietary rights. The claimant appealed refusal of an award an account of profits for what was akin to a breach of statutory duty.
Cited – Ramzan v Brookwide Ltd CA 19-Aug-2011
The defendant had broken through into a neighbour’s flying freehold room, closed it off, and then included it in its own premises for let. It now appealed against the quantum of damages awarded. The judge had found the actions deliberate and with a . .
Cited – 32Red Plc v WHG (International) Ltd and Others ChD 12-Apr-2013
The court had found trade mark infringement by the defendant and now considered the quantification of damages. . .
Cited – Morris-Garner and Another v One Step (Support) Ltd SC 18-Apr-2018
The Court was asked in what circumstances can damages for breach of contract be assessed by reference to the sum that the claimant could hypothetically have received in return for releasing the defendant from the obligation which he failed to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Damages, Contract, Media
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.77983
This appeal turns on the construction of a few clauses in a contract for the hire of a semi-submersible drilling rig.
Moore-Bick VP, McFarlane, Briggs LJJ
[2016] EWCA Civ 372
Bailii
England and Wales
Contract
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.562163
The buyers and sellers of a company agreed orally for the sellers to deal with the buyers exclusively and to terminate any negotiations between them and any other competing buyer. The sellers later decided not to proceed with their negotiations with the buyers and went on to sell the company to another party. The buyers sued for breach of the oral agreement. The sellers’ defence was that the parties were still in negotiations and the oral agreement was an agreement to negotiate in good faith.
Held: The oral agreement was unenforceable. An agreement to negotiate in good faith was unworkable in practice because while negotiations were in existence, either party was entitled to withdraw from those negotiations at any time and for any reason. Such an agreement was uncertain and had no legal content.
Lord Ackner said: ‘The reason why an agreement to negotiate, like an agreement to agree, is unenforceable is simply because it lacks the necessary certainty. The same does not apply to an agreement to use best endeavours. This uncertainty is demonstrated in the instant case by the provision which it is said has to be implied in the agreement for the determination of the negotiations. How can a court be expected to decide whether, subjectively, a proper reason existed for the termination of negotiations? The answer suggested depends upon whether the negotiations have been determined ‘in good faith’. However, the concept of a duty to carry on negotiations in good faith is inherently repugnant to the adversarial position of the parties when involved in negotiations. Each party to the negotiations is entitled to pursue his (or her) own interest, so long as he avoids making misrepresentations. To advance that interest he must be entitled, if he thinks it appropriate, to threaten to withdraw from further negotiations or to withdraw in fact in the hope that the opposite party may seek to reopen the negotiations by offering him improved terms. Mr Naughton, of course, accepts that the agreement upon which he relies does not contain a duty to complete the negotiations. But that still leaves the vital question: how is a vendor ever to know that he is entitled to withdraw from further negotiations? How is the court to police such an ‘agreement’? A duty to negotiate in good faith is as unworkable in practice as it is inherently inconsistent with the position of a negotiating party. It is here that the uncertainty lies. In my judgment, while negotiations are in existence either party is entitled to withdraw from these negotiations, at any time and for any reason. There can be thus no obligation to continue to negotiate until there is a ‘proper reason’ to withdraw. Accordingly, a bare agreement to negotiate has no legal content.’
As to a lock out agreement, Lord Ackner said: ‘There is clearly no reason in English contract law why A, for good consideration, should not achieve an enforceable agreement whereby B, agrees for a specified period of time, not to negotiate with anyone except A in relation to the sale of his property.’ and ‘B, by agreeing not to negotiate for this fixed period with a third party, locks himself out of such negotiations. He has in no legal sense locked himself into negotiations with A. What A has achieved is an exclusive opportunity, for a fixed period, to try and come to terms with B, an opportunity for which he has, unless he makes his agreement under seal, to give good consideration.’
Lord Ackner
[1992] 2 AC 128, [1992] 1 All ER 453, [1992] 2 WLR 174, [1992] ANZ Conv R 207
Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 2
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Courtney and Fairbairn Limited v Tolaini Brothers (Hotels) Ltd CA 1975
There was an agreement between a site developer and building contractors who introduced a financier to provide money for the development project. The question arose whether the developer had entered into a binding and enforceable contract to employ . .
Cited by:
Cited – Cobbe v Yeomans Row Management Ltd and Others ChD 25-Feb-2005
Principles for Proprietary Estoppel
A developer claimed to have agreed that upon obtaining necessary planning permissions for land belonging to the respondents, he would purchase the land at a price reflecting its new value. The defendant denied that any legally enforceable agreement . .
Cited – Pitt v PHH Asset Management CA 29-Jun-1993
. .
Cited – MRI Trading Ag v Erdenet Mining Corporation Llc CA 8-Mar-2013
The Commercial Court had found the result of an arbitration award ‘obviously wrong’, and ineed bizarre.
Held: The appeal failed. The award was flawed, in failing to take account of the trading context between the parties: ‘The overall . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land, Contract
Leading Case
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.223726
Arden, McCombe LJJ, Sir Bernard Rix
[2013] EWCA Civ 644
Bailii
England and Wales
Contract
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.510185
Arden, Kitchin LJJ, Sir David Keene
[2013] EWCA Civ 645
Bailii
England and Wales
Contract
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.510187
His Honour Judge Stephen Davies
sitting as a High Court Judge
[2021] EWHC 2639 (Comm)
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.668398
claim for wasted costs and damages arising out of the termination of a contract for a new information technology system.
[2021] EWHC 347 (TCC)
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.663135
Lewison LJ
[2013] EWCA Civ 577, [2013] 4 All ER 377, [2013] WLR(D) 202
Bailii, WLRD
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Phones 4U Ltd v EE Ltd ComC 16-Jan-2018
The parties contracted for the marketing of contracts for the marketing of the defendant’s mobile phone contracts. On the claimant entering administration, the defendant exercised a clause in their contract to terminate the contract. The claimant . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 30 October 2021; Ref: scu.510028
Where an agreement has been entered into for the sale of a house at a fixed price, and of the fixtures and furniture therein at a valuation by a person named by both parties, and he undertakes the valuation, but if refused permission by the vendor to enter the premises for that purpose, the Court will make a mandatory order to compel the vendor to allow the entry to enable the valuation to proceed.
The Court has jurisdiction to make any interlocutory order which is
reasonably asked as ancillary to the administration of justice at the hearing.
Sir George Jessel MR said: ‘I have no hesitation in saying that there is no limit to the practice of the court with regard to interlocutory applications so far as they are necessary and reasonable applications ancillary to the due performance of its functions, namely, the administration of justice at the hearing of the cause.’
Sir George Jessel MR
[1875] UKLawRpEq 126, (1875) LR 20 Eq 511
Commonlii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Bayer v Winter CA 1986
Fox LJ said: ‘Bearing in mind we are exercising a jurisdiction which is statutory, and which is expressed in terms of considerable width, it seems to me that the court should not shrink if it is of the opinion that an injunction is necessary for the . .
Cited – XX and Others v YY and Others ChD 2-Jul-2021
The first defendant applies for an order that the claimants are not entitled to pursue legal action against his lawyers in respect of funds over which the claimants claim a proprietary interest and paid to the first defendant’s lawyers as legal fees . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 30 October 2021; Ref: scu.668765
[1826] EngR 1323, (1826) 2 Car and P 514, (1826) 172 ER 233
Commonlii
England and Wales
Updated: 27 October 2021; Ref: scu.326087
Farmers sued the defenders, a firm of seed merchants, for damages for their failure to supply savoy seed according to description.
[1940] ScotCS CSIH – 6, 1941 SLT 105, 1941 SC 125
Bailii
Scotland
Updated: 27 October 2021; Ref: scu.279385
[1862] EngR 579, (1862) 2 B and S 419, (1862) 121 ER 1129
Commonlii
England and Wales
Updated: 27 October 2021; Ref: scu.286745
Interim application for permission to bring judicial review proceedings in relation to a decision by the defendant, The Royal Parks Limited (‘TRP’), not to grant the claimant an extension to a contract by way of concession for the operation of boating facilities in Hyde Park, on the Serpentine, and in Greenwich Park.
[2020] EWHC 3647 (Admin)
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 27 October 2021; Ref: scu.657345
[2004] EWHC 1266 (Comm)
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 26 October 2021; Ref: scu.197846
Request for summary judgment
[2021] EWHC 2439 (Comm)
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 26 October 2021; Ref: scu.667944
Burton J
[2008] EWHC 344 (Comm), [2008] Bus LR D68, [2008] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 541, [2008] 1 CLC 276, 117 Con LR 88, [2008] CILL 2575, [2008] 1 All ER (Comm) 893
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 23 October 2021; Ref: scu.266201
[1837] EngR 489, (1837) 2 Y and C Ex 462, (1837) 160 ER 478
Commonlii
England and Wales
Updated: 22 October 2021; Ref: scu.313606
[2020] EWHC 1962 (Comm)
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 22 October 2021; Ref: scu.652957
Application for summary judgment – claimed failure to pay rent and contractual interest in relation to six aircraft lease agreements for commercial passenger aircraft.
Mrs Justice Cockerill
[2020] EWHC 2025 (Comm)
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 22 October 2021; Ref: scu.652958
A. assumes to B. to dye for him divers cloths severally, which amount to sixty cloths ; and B, promises to pay to A. a certain sum for each of those cloths ; A. avers that he has dyed the said cloths, amounting to fifty nine cloths for B. and has delivered them to him ; and that the sum due for them amouts to 191. which is not paid ; and for this A. brings his action ; upon non assumpsit pleaded, a verdict is found with the plaintiff ; he had judgtment, affirmed in error : for the mention of the said fifty-nine cloths was only superfluous, and a mis-summing ; the said cloths are sixty cloths, for the dying of sixty cloths was mentioned before. The judgment was, quod quer’ recuperet, damages and costs pro detentione debiti praedicti ; whereas the better form had been, pro non praestatione assumptionis praedictae : yet good. Judged and affirmed in error.
[1220] EngR 107, (1220-1623) Jenk 297, (1220) 145 ER 217 (A)
Commonlii
England and Wales
Updated: 20 October 2021; Ref: scu.461019
A is bound to B in a single bill for payment of andpound;100, te andpound;100 is paid, and the bill delivered to A, and afterwards B by force takes it from A. B sues A upon this bill : this delivery and taling by force is not a plea in this suit ; for a writing sealed and delievered shall not be avoided by parol : where there is an obligation, or a bill it is good ab initio. An infant shall avoid his debt contracted during his ingancy : if it be not for necessary provisions, cloaths and schooling. Coverture shall avoid a deed : so of duress used to get an obligatory deed : so if a deed be read otherwise than it is, an illiterate or a blind man.
[1220] EngR 20, (1220-1623) Jenk 166, (1220) 145 ER 107 (D)
Commonlii
England and Wales
Updated: 20 October 2021; Ref: scu.460932
C gave a warrant to B to arrest A for an alleged debt. A promised B that, in return for not arresting him, he would pay the debt.
Held: C failed in his action, on the ground, inter alia, that the promise had been made to B.
78 ER 616, (1594) Cro Eliz 369
England and Wales
Updated: 19 October 2021; Ref: scu.222005
Reference for a preliminary ruling – Judicial cooperation in civil matters – Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 – Article 1, paragraph 1 – Civil and commercial matters – Article 35 – Provisional and protective measures – Action based on a contract for construction works of a express public route concluded between a public authority and two companies governed by private law – Application for interim relief related to penalties and guarantees arising from this contract – Interim decision already rendered by a court having jurisdiction on the merits
[2021] EUECJ C-581/20, ECLI:EU:C:2021:808
Bailii
European
Citing:
Opinion – Toto (Judicial Cooperation In Civil Matters – Contract for The Performance of Public Road Building Works – Opinion) ECJ 9-Sep-2021
Reference for a preliminary ruling – Judicial cooperation in civil matters – Jurisdiction and recognition of judgments in civil and commercial matters – Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 – Concept of civil and commercial matters – Provisional, including . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 19 October 2021; Ref: scu.668603
[2021] EWHC 2452 (Ch)
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 19 October 2021; Ref: scu.667692
Post employment restrictions – enforcement
Saini J
[2021] EWHC 1834 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 19 October 2021; Ref: scu.666035
[1835] EngR 885, (1835) 7 Sim 483, (1835) 58 ER 922 (B)
Commonlii
Updated: 18 October 2021; Ref: scu.316393
When construing a land contract, the parties should not readily be assumed to have intended to act in breach of planning requirements
[1987] 1 WLR 841
Cited by:
Cited – Geoffrey Allan Chadwick, Sylvia Joyce Chadwick, Edward James Chadwick v Abbotswood Properties Ltd, Gordon Leonard Hauser, Pamela Ann Hauser, Rectory Pump Ltd ChD 18-May-2004
Between to new houses was a steep bank. Who owned it? Before the transfer there had been different plans and much correspondence.
Held: Where there was doubt as to the extent of land transferred, the court could look to the physical boundaries . .
Cited – Stafford and Another v Lee and Another CA 10-Nov-1992
The plaintiff had built houses on his land and sought an easement of necessity over the neighbour’s drive for access for the houses under the rule in Pwllbach Colliery, saying an intended easement had been granted because it was known to the parties . .
Cited – Clarke and Another v Corless and Another ChD 8-Jul-2009
The parties disputed whether one could retain for his own benefit land on an estate reserved for an estate road. A trust was claimed under Pallant saying that the parties had made an informal agreement before the property was purchased.
Held: . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 17 October 2021; Ref: scu.197730
Action for breach of warranty in company share capital sale contract.
Mr Justice Kerr
[2021] EWHC 2531 (TCC)
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 17 October 2021; Ref: scu.668320
The plaintiffs, a discount company, were in the habit of discounting bills for S. In consideration that the plaintiffs would advance money to a certain amount to S on the deposit of a lease of S’s premises, the defendant guaranteed any part of the money so advanced that might remain due after the realisation of the leasehold security, the guarantee to last for a period not exceeding two years. Advances were made to S by the plaintiffs in accordance with the guarantee, and a great number of other transactions by way of further advance upon the discount of bills by the plaintiffs for S. took place in the usual course of business between them. Within two years from the date of the guarantee, S failed, owing to the plaintiffs an amount exceeding the sum guaranteed. A long debtor and creditor account was kept by the plaintiffs of their transactions with S during such time, including the advances made under the guarantee. The aggregate of the items on both sides of the account very largely exceeded the amount of the sum guaranteed. In this account the practice was to credit S with the amount of the bills discounted, less discount and commission, and debit him with the amount of the bills if they were dishonoured. Many of the bills discounted were renewed at maturity, and the same system of crediting and debiting applied to the renewals. The account was balanced on several occasions before S failed, and shewed balances against S of much less amount than the sums advanced under the guarantee, but these balances were arrived at by crediting S with the amount of outstanding bills, many of which were not paid at maturity, and were included in the ultimate balance against S. Bills were discounted with the plaintiffs by S to cover advances made under the guarantee, and were from time to time renewed but never were paid. Bills, discounted by S with the plaintiffs after the advances under the guarantee, had been paid to an amount exceeding the sum guaranteed, but it did not appear that in point of fact the balance really due from S to the plaintiffs after the date of the guarantee was ever less than the sum guaranteed. In an action on the guarantee to recover the moneys advanced under it.
Held: Under the circumstances of the case, it could not have been the intention of the plaintiffs and S, by the mode in which the account between them was kept, that the advance under the guarantee should be considered as satisfied by the items of credit therein, and consequently that the action was maintainable.
The rule in Clayton’s Case that payments are credited against the first item shown debited can be displaced by evidence of a contrary intention.
(1874) LR 9 CP 692, [1874] UKLawRpCP 60
Commonlii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Devaynes v Noble; Baring v Noble, Clayton’s Case CA 1816
A partner in a banking firm died. The surviving partners continued to trade without making any changes. They later fell into bankruptcy. Creditors of the bank at the date of the death still traded with the bank with varying changes in their banking . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 October 2021; Ref: scu.229292
Challenge to judgment finding liability under company personal guarantees.
Lady Justice Arden Holman Mr Justice Holman
[2004] EWCA Civ 392, [2004] 2 Lloyds Rep 429
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 16 October 2021; Ref: scu.195095
In 1944, the plaintiff had purchased a picture of Salisbury Cathedral from the defendant. By innocent misrepresentation, he was told that it was by Constable, and only learned of the error when he set out to sell it five years later.
Held: On the assumption that it was not a Constable and that it had been a condition of the contract that it be such, the plaintiff had had a right to reject the picture. That right would be lost after a reasonable time. Five years was too long, and the right to reject was lost.
Denning LJ said: ‘In my opinion, this case is to be decided according to the well known principles applicable to the sale of goods. This was a contract for the sale of goods. There was a mistake about the quality of the subject-matter, because both parties believed the picture to be a Constable; and that mistake was in one sense essential or fundamental. But such a mistake does not avoid the contract: there was no mistake at all about the subject-matter of the sale. It was a specific picture, ‘Salisbury Cathedral’. The parties were agreed in the same terms on the same subject -matter, and that is sufficient to make a contract: see Solle v Butcher.
‘There was a term in the contract as to the quality of the subject-matter: namely, as to the person by whom the picture was painted – that it was by Constable. That term of the contract was, according to our terminology, either a condition or a warranty. If it was a condition, the buyer could reject the picture for breach of the condition at any time before he accepted it, or is deemed to have accepted it; whereas, if it was only a warranty, he could not reject it at all but was confined to a claim for damages. . . I think it right to assume in the buyer’s favour that this term was a condition’
Sir Raymond Evershed MR, Denning LJ, Jenkins LJ
[1950] 1 All ER 693
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Solle v Butcher CA 1949
Fundamental Mistake Needed to Allow Rescission
The court set out the circumstances in which the equitable remedy of rescission of a contract is available for mutual mistake. The mistake has to be as to some fundamental element of the contract. What is ‘fundamental’ is a wider category of event . .
Cited by:
Cited – Harlingdon and Leinster Enterprises Ltd v Christopher Hull Fine Art Ltd CA 15-Dec-1989
The defendant auctioneer sold a painting to the plaintiff which turned out to be a forgery. The plaintiff appealed against a finding that it had not relied upon the attribution, saying that there had been a breach of the requirement that the paintig . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 October 2021; Ref: scu.189997
The defendant auctioneer sold a painting to the plaintiff which turned out to be a forgery. The plaintiff appealed against a finding that it had not relied upon the attribution, saying that there had been a breach of the requirement that the paintig fit the description given.
Held: The appeal failed (Slade LJ dissenting).
Nourse LJ said: ‘many dealers habitually deal with each other on the principle caveat emptor. For my part, being confident that that principle would receive general acceptance amongst dealers, I would say that the astuteness of lawyers ought to be directed towards facilitating, rather than impeding, the efficient working of the market. The court ought to be exceedingly wary in giving a seller’s attribution any contractual effect. To put it in lawyers’ language, the potential arguability of almost any attribution, being part of the common experience of the contracting parties, is part of the factual background against which the effect if any, of an attribution must be judged.
Slade, Nourse, Stuart-Smith LJJ
[1991] 1 QB 564, [1989] 3 WLR 13, [1990] 1 All ER 737, Times 22-Dec-1989, [1989] EWCA Civ 4
Bailii
Sale of Goods Act 1979 13
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Varley v Whipp QBD 1900
The defendant agreed to buy from the plaintiff a self binder reaping machine, which the defendant had not seen, but which the plaintiff told him had been new the previous year and was represented to have only been used to cut 50 or 60 acres. On . .
Cited – Couchman v Hill CA 1947
The plaintiff purchased from the defendant at auction a heifer which was described in the sale catalogue as ‘unserved’. Later, having been found to be in calf, she died as a result of carrying it at too young an age.
Held: the description of . .
Cited – Joseph Travers and Sons Ltd v Longel Ltd 1947
It being found that the plaintiff buyer had not relied on the inaccurate descriptive name for boots purchased, the sale was not one by description. . .
Cited – Solle v Butcher CA 1949
Fundamental Mistake Needed to Allow Rescission
The court set out the circumstances in which the equitable remedy of rescission of a contract is available for mutual mistake. The mistake has to be as to some fundamental element of the contract. What is ‘fundamental’ is a wider category of event . .
Cited – Leaf v International Galleries (a Firm) CA 1-Mar-1950
In 1944, the plaintiff had purchased a picture of Salisbury Cathedral from the defendant. By innocent misrepresentation, he was told that it was by Constable, and only learned of the error when he set out to sell it five years later.
Held: On . .
Cited – Berger and Co Inc v Gill and Duffus SA (No 2) HL 1984
The sellers had agreed to sell 500 tonnes of bolita beans cif Le Havre. In the event only 445 tonnes were discharged at Le Havre and the remaining 55 tonnes were on-carried to Rotterdam. The documents in respect the 500 tonnes were presented but . .
Cited – Grant v Australian Knitting Mills PC 21-Oct-1935
(Australia) The Board considered how a duty of care may be established: ‘All that is necessary as a step to establish a tort of actionable negligence is define the precise relationship from which the duty to take care is deduced. It is, however, . .
Cited – Rogers v Parish (Scarborough) Ltd CA 1987
The plaintiff appealed against rejection of his claim that the car he had bought from the defendant was not of merchantable quality. The goods were a Range Rover bought for a sum in excess of andpound;14,000.
Held: The appeal was allowed. . .
Cited by:
Cited – Drake v Thos Agnew and Sons Limited QBD 8-Mar-2002
The claimant sought the return of money paid by him for a painting. He said it had been sold to his agent as by ‘Van Dyck’ but subsequently proved not to be so. He had employed an agent to acquire the painting, but the agent had not disclosed to him . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 October 2021; Ref: scu.183425
The defendant had been convicted of an offence of permitting disorderly conduct in a cafe, under her proper name of Ann Robinson. She then assumed the name of Ann Potter. The plaintiff’s evidence was that, if he had known that she was Ann Robinson, he would not have granted her the lease, for use as a restaurant, and contended that the lease was void for mistake.
Held: Accepting this argument.
Tucker J said: ‘This case of landlord and tenant is clearly a case where the consideration of the person with whom the contract was made was a vital element in the contract, and that, therefore, if there was any mistake on the part of the plaintiff with regard to the identity of the person with whom she was contracting, the contract is void ab initio.’
Tucker J
[1939] 4 All ER 478, [1940] 1 KB 271, 162 LT 12, 56 TLR 142, 84 Sol Jo 115
England and Wales
Cited by:
Criticised – Solle v Butcher CA 1949
Fundamental Mistake Needed to Allow Rescission
The court set out the circumstances in which the equitable remedy of rescission of a contract is available for mutual mistake. The mistake has to be as to some fundamental element of the contract. What is ‘fundamental’ is a wider category of event . .
Criticised – Gallie v Lee HL 1971
Lord Wilberforce said that the principles of non est factum are designed to protect also innocent third parties who may rely upon a document signed apparently correctly. . .
Criticised – Lewis v Averay CA 22-Jul-1971
A private seller had parted with his car in return for a worthless cheque to a rogue who persuaded him that he was the well-known actor who played Robin Hood on television, and who sold it on to the defendant.
Held: ‘When two parties have come . .
Cited – Norman Hudson v Shogun Finance Ltd CA 28-Jun-2001
A rogue had purchased a car, using a false name to obtain finance. He had then sold it to the defendant. The finance company claimed the car back.
Held: The dealer had not taken all the steps he might have done to check the identity of the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 October 2021; Ref: scu.188422
Hickinbottom J
[2015] EWHC 3403 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 16 October 2021; Ref: scu.556969
The claimant, Thornbridge Limited, seeks damages for losses which it alleges it suffered as a result of entering into an interest rate swap with Barclays Bank PLC in 2008. The claimant alleges that the defendant was negligent and/or in breach of contract and/or in breach of statutory duty in respect of information and advice given to the claimant in relation to the swap.
Held: The claim failed: ‘This is in my view a case based on hindsight and a loan agreement which did not operate as the parties intended. As I have found on the evidence before me, it is not a case of a claimant being advised to enter, or being misled into entering, into a swap which in the circumstances was unsuitable. ‘
Moulder HHJ
[2015] EWHC 3430 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 16 October 2021; Ref: scu.556970
Whether, and if so in what circumstances, a party can set aside a contract on the ground that it was entered into as a result of the other party threatening to do a lawful act.
Lord Reed, President, Lord Hodge, Deputy President, Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lord Kitchin, Lord Burrows
[2021] UKSC 40
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
At First Instance – Times Travel (UK) Ltd Nottingham Travel (UK) Ltd v Pakistan International Airlines Corporation ChD 14-Jun-2017
The claimants alleged undue pressure on them by the defendants to enter into contracts to compromise earlier disputes. . .
See Also – Times Travel UK Ltd and Another v Pakistan International Airline Corporation ChD 17-Jul-2018
The court considered, post judgment, directions for the taking of accounts and an application for a variation of the costs order. . .
Appeal from – Times Travel (UK) Ltd v Pakistan International Airlines Corporation CA 14-May-2019
This appeal concerns the area of lawful act duress, where a contract results from a threat of a lawful act or omission. Does lawful act duress exist at all and, if so, in what circumstances may it be invoked? . .
See Also – Times Travel UK Ltd and Another v Pakistan Internation Airlines Corporation ChD 11-Aug-2020
. .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 October 2021; Ref: scu.668363
CPR Part 71 examination of the Defendant as a judgment debtor.
Hill C DM
[2020] EWHC 2181 (Comm)
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 15 October 2021; Ref: scu.653088
The Claimant time charterer seeks an urgent mandatory injunction compelling the Defendant voyage charterer to provide security to enable the release of the MT ‘Miracle Hope’ (the ‘Vessel’), which is currently under arrest in Singapore. In summary, the Claimant alleges that the Defendant is contractually obliged to provide the security sought but has so far failed to do so.
Mr Justice Henshaw
[2020] EWHC 726 (Comm)
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
See Also – Trafigura Maritime Logistics Pte Ltd v Clearlake Shipping Pte Ltd ComC 27-Apr-2020
Return date in respect of two mandatory injunctions requiring a voyage charterer, Clearlake, and a sub-voyage charterer, Petrobras, ‘forthwith’ to provide such bail or other security required to secure the release of the vessel MIRACLE HOPE from . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 15 October 2021; Ref: scu.649891
Peter MacDonald Eggers QC
[2020] EWHC 303 (Comm)
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 15 October 2021; Ref: scu.648589
Sugar was agreed to be sold, with the price payable ‘Prompt at one month; goods at seller’s risk for two months’, to be kept at the seller’s premises and drawn down by the buyers as wanted. After two months and after only some of the sugar had been drawn down by the buyers, a fire destroyed the rest. The buyer having disputed his liability to pay for the undelivered sugar which had been burned in the fire, the seller brought an action ‘to recover the price of [the] sugars sold’ and the question was whether the sellers were so entitled. Held, by Cockburn, CJ, on the ground that the property in the titlers undelivered had passed to the defendant, by Blackburn, Lush, and Quain JJ, whether it had passed or not, that, by the terms of the contract of sale, the risk, after the lapse of the two months, was in the buyer, and the loss was, therefore, his.
Secondly, that, as there was no contract between the plaintiffs and their customers as to insurance, the plaintiffs were under no obligation in the matter, and were entitled to appropriate to their own losses the whole sum received from the insurance offices.
Semble, by Blackburn and Lush, JJ., that the property in the titlers undelivered had passed to the defendant.
Blackburn J said: ‘As a general rule res perit domino, the old civil law maxim, is a maxim of our law; and when you can show that the property has passed, the risk of the loss prima facie is in the person in whom the property is.’
Blackburn J said: ‘As a general rule res perit domino, the old civil law maxim, is a maxim of our law; and when you can show that the property has passed, the risk of the loss prima facie is in the person in whom the property is.’ and ”[A]ssume that [property] had not passed. If the agreement between the parties was, ‘I contract that when you pay the price I will deliver the goods to you, but the property shall not be yours, they shall still be my property so that I may have dominion over them; but though they shall not be yours, I stipulate and agree that if I keep them beyond the month the risk shall be upon you;’ and then the goods perish; to say that the buyer could then set up this defence and say, ‘Although I stipulated that the risk should be mine, yet, inasmuch as an accident has happened which has destroyed them, I will have no part of that risk, but will throw it entirely upon you because the property did not pass to me,’ is a proposition which, stated in that way, appears to be absolutely a reductio ad absurdum; and that is really what the argument amounts to. If the parties have stipulated that, if after the two months the goods remain in the sellers’ warehouse, they shall, nevertheless, remain there at the buyer’s risk, it would be a manifest absurdity to say that he is not to pay for them; and I think the case of Castle v Playford is a clear authority of the Court of Exchequer Chamber, that where the parties have stipulated that the risk shall be on one side, it matters not whether the property had passed or not. The parties here have by their express stipulation impliedly said, after the two months the goods shall be at the risk of the buyer, consequently it is the buyer who must bear the loss.’
Cockburn CJ, Blackburn, Lush and Quain JJ
(1872) LR 7 QB 436, 26 LT 836
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Castle v Playford Cexc 1872
The contract for the sale of ice was for cash on delivery at the rate of 20s a ton as weighed on arrival and delivery in the United Kingdom, but it was agreed that the buyer should ‘take upon himself all risks and dangers of the seas’. The vessel . .
Cited by:
Cited – PST Energy 7 Shipping Llc and Another v OW Bunker Malta Ltd and Another SC 11-May-2016
Parties had entered into a bunker supply contract which contained a retention of title clause in favour of the supplier. It purported to allow the buyer to use the goods before title came to be passed.
Held: The owner’s appeal failed. It did . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 15 October 2021; Ref: scu.618138
The contract for the sale of ice was for cash on delivery at the rate of 20s a ton as weighed on arrival and delivery in the United Kingdom, but it was agreed that the buyer should ‘take upon himself all risks and dangers of the seas’. The vessel was lost.
Held: The true construction of the contract was from the buyer’s viewpoint, as set out by Cockburn CJ’s: ‘I will engage, when it arrives, to pay you according to what may be its value; and if, in the meantime, while it is upon the seas, it shall perish through the perils of the seas, I will undertake to pay you for it according to what may be estimated to have been its fair value at the time of going down.’
Lord Blackburn said: ‘Now here the ship and the cargo have gone to the bottom of the sea, but in the case of Alexander v. Gardner and Fragano v. Long ( 4 B. and C. 219) it was held that if the property did perish before the time for payment came, the time being dependent upon delivery, and if the delivery was prevented by the destruction of the property, the purchaser was to pay an equivalent sum.’
Cockburn CJ, Willes, Blackburn, Mellor, Brett and Grove JJ
(1872) LR 7 Ex 98
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Martineau v Kitching QBD 3-May-1872
Sugar was agreed to be sold, with the price payable ‘Prompt at one month; goods at seller’s risk for two months’, to be kept at the seller’s premises and drawn down by the buyers as wanted. After two months and after only some of the sugar had been . .
Cited – PST Energy 7 Shipping Llc and Another v OW Bunker Malta Ltd and Another SC 11-May-2016
Parties had entered into a bunker supply contract which contained a retention of title clause in favour of the supplier. It purported to allow the buyer to use the goods before title came to be passed.
Held: The owner’s appeal failed. It did . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 15 October 2021; Ref: scu.618137
Application for an interim injunction to restrain the pursuit, by the defendant, of an expert determination. T
[2021] EWHC 1742 (TCC)
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 15 October 2021; Ref: scu.667712
[2010] EWCA Civ 408, [2011] 1 All ER (Comm) 647
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 14 October 2021; Ref: scu.408545
Evans LJ
[1999] EWCA Civ 3028, [2000] 1 LLR 218, [2000] 1 All ER (Comm) 1, [2000] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 218, [2000] CLC 133, [2000] 1 Lloyds Rep 218
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 14 October 2021; Ref: scu.346277
Order made to restrain an action brought by an auctioneer against the solicitor in a lunacy for the amount of his bill for appraising and selling property belonging to the lunatic, such sale having been made under the authority of the Court, and the auctioneer having acted on the instructions of the solicitor, and with the sanction of the Master, before whom he had at first carried in his claim; and a reference directed for the purpose of ascertaining what would he a proper sum to be allowed him on that account.
[1837] EngR 532, (1837) 2 My and Cr 441, (1837) 40 ER 708
Commonlii
England and Wales
Updated: 14 October 2021; Ref: scu.313649
A contract provided for the payment of a stated sum by one party to the contract (A) to the other party (B) in the event of the non-performance by A of one of more contractual obligations owed by A not to B himself but to C, who was not a party to the contract.
Held: Even if an agreement is an onerous and commercially imprudent one for the principals to have signed, it is not for the court to relieve them from their bargain: ‘. . the reason why the defendant’s submissions failed in the courts below can be simply stated. The clause was not a penalty clause because it provided for payment of money on the happening of a specified event other than a breach of contractual duty owed by the contemplated payer to the contemplated payee.’ and ‘[P]erhaps the main purpose, of the law relating to penalty clauses is to prevent a plaintiff recovering a sum of money in respect of a breach of contract committed by a defendant which bears little or no relationship to the loss actually suffered by the plaintiff as a result of the breach by the defendant. But it is not and never has been for the courts to relieve a party from the consequences of what may in the event prove to be an onerous or possibly even a commercially imprudent bargain.’
Lord Roskill: ‘[Counsel] invited your Lordships to look at the number of authorities in support of his proposition that the relevant law should now be extended, and contended that those authorities showed that the way remained open for such an extension. Those cases are referred to in the judgments of the courts below and I shall not refer to them again for, with respect, I am unable to find the slightest support in any of them for [Counsel’s] submissions.
My Lords, one purpose, perhaps the main purpose, of the law relating to penalty clauses is to prevent a plaintiff recovering a sum of money in respect of a breach of contract committed by a defendant which bears little or no relationship to the loss actually suffered by the plaintiff as a result of the breach by the defendant. But it is not and never has been for the courts to relieve a party from the consequences of what may in the event prove to be an onerous or possibly even a commercially imprudent bargain. The defendants could only secure the finance from Kleinworts if the ECGD were prepared to give Kleinworts the guarantee which Kleinworts required. The ECGD were only prepared to give their guarantee to Kleinworts on the terms of the premium agreement which included the stringent right of recourse provided for in cl 7(1). The defendants accepted those terms which provided for the right of recourse to arise on the happening of a specified event, and that specified event has now happened. But, as . . . Lord Keith observed during the argument, this is not a case where the ECGD are seeking to recover more than their actual loss as compensation by way of damages for breach of a contract to which they were a party. They are seeking, and only seeking, to recover their actual loss, namely the sums which they became legally obliged to pay and have paid to Kleinworts. I am afraid I find it impossible to see how on the facts there can be any room for the invocation of the law relating to penalty clauses.’
Lord Roskill
[1983] 1 WLR 399, [1983] 2 All ER 205
England and Wales
Citing:
Approved – In re Apex Supply Co Ltd 1942
A hire purchase agreement provided that if the hirer should go into liquidation, and the owner should retake possession, the hirer would pay a sum by way of compensation for depreciation.
Held: The provision for the payment of compensation was . .
Cited by:
Cited – Duffen v Fra Bo Spa CA 30-Apr-1998
The plaintiff had been appointed as an exclusive sales agent for the defendant for a minimum period of four years. The defendants terminated it eighteen months early claiming fraudulent misrepresentation.
Held: The clause setting the damages . .
Cited – Euro London Appointments Ltd v Claessens International Ltd CA 6-Apr-2006
The court considered whether a clause in an employment agency’s terms and conditions amounted to a penalty and was unenforceable. The contract provided that if the offer was withdrawn by the eventual employer after acceptance but before the . .
Cited – Office of Fair Trading v Abbey National Plc and seven Others ComC 24-Apr-2008
The Office sought a declaration that the respondent and other banks were subject to the provisions of the Regulations in their imposition of bank charges to customer accounts, and in particular as to the imposition of penalties or charges for the . .
Cited – Cavendish Square Holding Bv v Talal El Makdessi; ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis SC 4-Nov-2015
The court reconsidered the law relating to penalty clauses in contracts. The first appeal, Cavendish Square Holding BV v Talal El Makdessi, raised the issue in relation to two clauses in a substantial commercial contract. The second appeal, . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 14 October 2021; Ref: scu.197032
The appellants were a Northern Irish company, which had entered liquidation, and the liquidator of that company. The respondent was a finance house. The company entered into a ‘block discounting’ agreement, which involved assigning customer credit sale debts in blocks to the finance house in return for a lump sum payment. The arrangement was based upon a trading agreement, as a form of master agreement, governing all subsequent individual transactions for the sale of each block of debts.
Held: Lord Wilberforce considered whether certain assignment of book debts were in substance absolute assignments by way of sale or assignments by way of charge and would be void against a liquidator for non-registration under the Companies Act. He said: ‘My Lords, the fact that the transaction consisted essentially in the provision of finance and the similarity in result between a loan and a sale, to all of which I have drawn attention, gives to the appellants’ arguments an undoubted force. It is only possible, in fact, to decide whether they are correct by paying close regard to what the precise contractual arrangements between them and the respondents were.’ and ‘it has to be appreciated that block discounting is essentially a method of providing finance. Commercially and in its economic result, it may not differ from lending money at interest: the ‘discounting charge’, which represents the finance house’s profit, is stated in term of so much per cent per annum, which percentage is no doubt based upon current interest rates. Legally, however, there is no doubt that discounting is not treated as the lending of money and that the asset discounted is not considered as the subject of a charge.’
Lord Wilberforce, Lord Scarman
[1992] BCLC 609
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Dutton and Another v Davis and Another CA 4-May-2006
The appellant had transferred his property with the intention that it should be subject to a right on his part to repurchase it. He now said the sale was in practice merely a charge.
Held: The appeal failed. The legal nature of the transaction . .
Cited – Humber Oil Terminals Trustee Ltd v Associated British Ports CA 10-May-2012
The tenant appealed against a finding that the landlord was entitled to resist renewal of its lease under the 1954 Act challenging the stated intention of the landlord to occupy the premises for its own business purposes. It said that the proposed . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 14 October 2021; Ref: scu.242532