The plaintiff instructed the defendants, a firm of wool-brokers in the City of London, to buy foreign wool for him, in the belief that all the partners in the firm were duly qualified to act as brokers. It was of some importance to him to know who the sellers were of the wool which the defendants claimed to have bought for him, and he came to suspect that the information given him by the defendants as to the sellers was false and that the transactions were fraudulent. He therefore sought discovery of their dealings for him against the defendants. In fact, however, two of the three partners in the defendant firm were not qualified to act as brokers, as they had not entered into appropriate bonds with the City authorities, and if they were shown to have acted as brokers without being duly qualified they would be liable to penalties by statutes. The defendants therefore refused to give discovery or any further information, and relied on the privilege against self-incrimination.
Held: The court considered the rule against self-incrimination. A man by contract or the effect of his own acts may exclude himself from the benefit of the privilege against self-incrimination. The court equated, in equity, the moral obligation of a confidential agent to give discovery, to an obligation resulting from a stipulation by deed. A justification of the decision on moral grounds, was that the plaintiff as employer had no reason to suspect, and no means of detecting the misrepresentation of the fact whether the defendants were or were not duly constituted legal brokers.
Judges:
Sir Anthony Hart, Vice-Chancellor
Citations:
(1827) 1 Sim 404, (1827) 57 ER 630
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Holder v The Law Society Admn 26-Jul-2005
The applicant challenged the independence of the respondent’s disciplinary tribunal.
Held: The claim failed: ‘the nature of the Tribunal is entirely adequately independent and impartial for the purposes for which it is constituted. The . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Litigation Practice
Updated: 23 November 2022; Ref: scu.200661