The House considered whether the meaning of the phrase ‘a person having control’ extended to control by more than one person. This depended on whether the word ‘person’ in the singular was to be construed as including the plural.
Held: The House applied the 1889 Act. A permissible aid to construction of a stautute is to ask whether, if the defined meaning is used in a particular provision, that provision would be unworkable or produce a result that Parliament could not have intended would be produced.
Viscount Dilhorne said that if a construction of a provision was ‘unworkable, or if not workable [leads] to a result that Parliament could not have intended, then it can be concluded that an intention contrary to the application of the Interpretation Act appears.’ and ‘It must be borne in mind that the Interpretation Act is to apply unless a contrary intention is shown. It is not the case that an intention that the Act should apply has to be shown for it to apply.’
Lord Wilberforce said: ‘It does not require authority to establish that the Act is one for the convenience of drafting: ‘for further shortening the language used in Acts of Parliament’, nor that a contrary intention may be gathered from the sense an intention of the Act in question. Though the Act appears to state a presumption this is not a strong one. Speaking of the common law presumption (which applied before the Interpretation Act 1889) that ‘person’ in an Act of Parliament includes ‘corporations’ Lord Blackburn said in Pharmaceutical Society v London and Provincial Supply Association Ltd (1880) 5 App Cas 857, 869: ‘Circumstances, and indeed circumstances of a slight nature in the context, might show in which way the word is to be construed in an Act of Parliament … whenever you can see that the object of the Act requires that the word ‘person’ shall have the more extended or less extended sense, then, whichever sense it requires, you should apply the word in that sense . .’ I do not think that the Act intends to apply any different test.’
Lord Woolf said: ‘It is the repealing Act, not the Act of 1974, which is required to manifest the contrary intention so as to exclude the operation of section 16. Were the position otherwise the object of section 16, which is to make it unnecessary to include in the subsequent legislation the provisions contained in section 16, would be frustrated. The silence of the subsequent legislation is consistent and not inconsistent with section 16 applying.’
Judges:
Viscount Dilhorne, Lord Wilberforce, Lord Woolf
Citations:
[1980] AC 695, [1979] 2 WLR 830, [1979] 2 All ER 677
Statutes:
Finance Act 1965 45 Sch7 15(2), Interpretation Act 1889 1(1)
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Pharmaceutical Society v London and Provincial Supply Association Ltd 11-Jan-1880
Lord Blackburn spoke of the presumption at common law that the word ‘person’ in an Act of Parliament includes ‘corporations’: ‘Circumstances, and indeed circumstances of a slight nature in the context, might show in which way the word is to be . .
Appeal from – Floor v Davis (Inspector of Taxes) CA 1979
The court considered the taxation of a sale of shares in one company called IDM to a company (FNW) and a further sale by that company to a yat another company (KDI). Held(Majority) It was right to look at each of the sales separately. The court . .
Cited by:
Cited – Secretary of State for Justice v Slee EAT 19-Jul-2007
EAT Unfair Dismissal – Constructive dismissal
Maternity Rights and Parental Leave – Sex discrimination
The Claimant was employed as a Magistrates’ Clerk and she brought successful claims to the . .
Cited – Crown Prosecution Service v Inegbu Admn 26-Nov-2008
The CPS appealed aganst a decision on a charge under the railway byelaws, that the charge be dismissed, the prosecution not having formally proved in accordance with any applicable statutory provision. The byelaws had in fact been properly . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Litigation Practice, Corporation Tax
Updated: 18 August 2022; Ref: scu.449978