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Estoppel - From: 1960 To: 1969

This page lists 14 cases, and was prepared on 27 May 2018.

 
Society of Medical Officers of Health v Hope [1960] AC 553
1960
HL
Radcliffe, Cohen, Jenkins LL, Viscount Simons, Keith L
Rating, Taxes Management, Estoppel
A local valuation court had decided in 1951 that the Society's land was exempt from rates under section 1 of the 1843 Act. The exemption was conditional on certain facts relating to the Society and its purpose in occupying the building. In 1956 the land was shown as a rateable in the new valuation list. The Lands Tribunal rejected a submission that a res judicata estoppel arose from the 1951 decision even though it was admitted that there had been no change of circumstances. Held: The limited jurisdiction of the local valuation court, which might have to form opinions on questions of general law, but only incidentally to its direct function of fixing the assessment and the special position of the valuation officer or equivalent official did not create an assessment binding for future years.
Lord Radcliffe said there was: "high and frequent authority for the proposition that it is not in the nature of a decision on one rate or tax that it should settle anything more than the bare issue of that one liability, and that, consequently, it cannot constitute an estoppel when a new issue of liability to a succeeding year' s rate or tax comes up for adjudication. The question of this liability is a "new question."
Lord Keith said: "The valuation officer has a public duty to perform by making periodically every five years a valuation list of all hereditaments, with certain exceptions, in his rating area. He must necessarily reconsider and revise the previous valuation list. He has no personal interest in any appeals taken against his valuations, and has a duty to hold the scales as fairly as he can among the ratepayers affected, the occupiers of the various hereditaments. The general body of ratepayers is constantly changing. With each quinquennium the revaluation will affect a new body of ratepayers. I doubt if the valuation officer owing such a duty to an ever-changing body of ratepayers can be regarded as always the same party in the sense in which that expression is used for the application of the rule of res judicata. What if the appellant society changes its habitat, and moves into another rating area with a different valuation officer?
I emphasise these aspects of the functions of a valuation officer under the statute, for they lead to what I regard as the true answer to the submission for the appellants, which is that a public officer in the position of the respondent cannot be estopped from carrying out his duties under the statute."
Scientific Societies Act 1843 1
1 Citers


 
Lowe v Lombank Ltd [1960] 1 WLR 196
1960
CA
Diplock J
Equity, Estoppel
A false statement made about a matter of past fact could not operate either as an estoppel by representation or (where the fact is expressed as an agreement) a contractual estoppel. The court set out three criteria for an evidential estoppel: it must be shown that:
(a) The clause (acknowledgement) was clear and unambiguous;
(b) that the representee had intended the representor to act on the statements in the clause; and
(c) that the representor must have entered into the contract in the belief that they were true.
1 Citers


 
Campbell Discount Ltd v Gall [1961] 2 All ER 104; [1961] 1 QBD 431
1961


Contract, Estoppel

1 Citers


 
Duedu v Yiboe [1961] 1 WLR 1040
1961
PC

Estoppel

1 Citers


 
Penn-Texas Corporation v Murat Anstalt (No 2) [1964] 2 QB 647
1964
CA
Denning MR
Estoppel
The court considered a claim for an issue estoppel arising from a foreign judgment: "In my opinion a previous judgment between the same parties is only conclusive on matters which are conclusive and necessary to the decision. It is not conclusive on other matters which came incidentally into consideration in the course of the reasoning: see the Duchess of Kingston’s Case (1776) 20 ST 336 and Reg v Hutchings (1881) 6 QBD 300. One of the tests in seeing whether a matter was necessary to the decision, or only incidental to it, is to ask: Could the party have appealed from it? If he could have appealed and did not, he is bound by it, see Bader Bee v Habib Merican Noordin [1909] AC 615, 623 by Lord Macnaghten. If he could not have appealed from it (because it did not affect the order made), then it is only an incidental matter, not essential to the decision, and he is not bound".
1 Cites

1 Citers



 
 Thoday v Thoday; CA 1964 - [1964] P 181; [1964] 1 All ER 341

 
 Connelly v Director of Public Prosecutions; HL 1964 - [1964] 2 AC 1254; [1964] 2 All ER 401
 
Kok Hoong v Leong Cheong Kweng Mines Ltd [1964] AC 993
1964
PC
Viscount Radcliffe
Estoppel
A clear public policy underlying a statute (for instance, the need to protect vulnerable persons dealing with moneylenders or landlords) prevents an estoppel arising: "To ask whether the law that confronts the estoppel can be seen to represent a social policy to which the Court must give effect in the interests of the public generally or some section of the public, despite any rules of evidence as between themselves that the parties may have created by their conduct or otherwise"
1 Citers


 
Fidelitas Shipping Co Ltd v V/O Exportchleb [1966] 1 QB 630; [1965] 2 WLR 1059; [1965] 2 All ER 4; [1961] 1 Lloyds Rep 223
1965
CA
Lord Denning MR, Diplock LJ
Estoppel, Arbitration
Where there is an award that is on its face an interim award, then the arbitrator is only functus officio with respect to the issues dealt with in that interim award and retains the authority to deal with the remaining matters. Issue estoppel applies to arbitration proceedings, including interim awards, as it does to normal civil litigation.
Lord Denning MR said: "Within one issue, there may be several points available which go to aid one party or the other in his efforts to secure a determination of the issue in his favour. The rule then is that each party must use reasonable diligence to bring forward every point which he thinks would help him. If he omits to raise any particular point, from negligence, inadvertence, or even accident (which would or might have decided the issue in his favour) he may find himself shut out from raising that point again, at any rate in any case where the self-same issue arises in the same or subsequent proceedings. But this again is not an inflexible rule. It can be departed from in special circumstances."
1 Citers


 
Inwards v Baker [1965] QB 29; [1965] 1 All ER 446; [1965] 2 WLR 212; [1965] EWCA Civ 465
13 Jan 1965
CA
Lord Denning MR, Danckwerts and Salmon LJJ
Equity, Estoppel
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 principle of equitable estoppel on the footing that where a person has expended money on the land of another with the expectation, induced or encouraged by the owner of the land, that he would be allowed to remain in occupation, an equity is created such that the court would protect his occupation of the land; and that the court has power to determine in what way the equity so arising would be satisfied. The court therefore refused the plaintiff an order for possession of the bungalow which his son had built on the land, and held that the son was entitled to stay there as long as he wanted. It need not be not fatal to a claim under the doctrine of proprietary estoppel that the property in which the right is claimed has not been precisely identified.
1 Cites

1 Citers

[ Bailii ]
 
Colt Industries v Sarlie (No. 2) [1966] 1 WLR 1287; [1966] 3 All ER 85
1966
CA
Lord Denning MR, Russell LJ
Estoppel, International
Lord Denning MR discussed the status of a foreign judgment whilst under appeal: "The appeal itself does not render it not final and conclusive, nor should the possibility of leave to appeal. It seems to me that the proper test is this : is the judgment a final and conclusive judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction in the territory in which it was pronounced. The relevant territory here is the State of New York. Applying this test, there was here a final and conclusive judgment."
Russell LJ said: "on the question whether a judgment lacks finality or conclusiveness for lack of enforceability, regard can only be had to the system of law applied by the court whose foreign judgment is in question"
1 Citers


 
D and C Builders Ltd v Rees [1966] 2 QB 617; [1965] EWCA Civ 3; [1965] 3 All ER 837; [1966] 2 WLR 28
1966
CA
Lord Denning MR, Dankwerts LJ
Contract, Estoppel
The plaintiff builders had been chasing payment of their undisputed invoice. Knowing that the builders were in financial difficulties, the defendant offered rather less, saying that if it was not accepted, she would pay nothing. She made the payment in full and final satisfaction of the debt. Held: The claim for the balance succeeded. The pressure applied had been improper, and there was no ground in equity to disentitle the plantiff recovering the rest.
When a debtor offers to pay only that which he admits he is already due to pay, that is not something which can amount to good consideration for the creditor abandoning the rest, save possibly in certain special circumstances. The doctrine of promissory estoppel only applies when it is inequitable for the creditor (or other representor) to insist on his full rights.
Lord Denning MR said: "This principle [the principle of promissory estoppel] has been applied to cases where a creditor agrees to accept a lesser sum in discharge of a greater. So much so that we can now say that, when a creditor and a debtor enter upon a course of negotiation, which leads the debtor to suppose that, on payment of the lesser sum, the creditor will not enforce payment of the balance, and on the faith thereof the debtor pays the lesser sum and the creditor accepts it as satisfaction: then the creditor will not be allowed to enforce payment of the balance when it would be inequitable to do so. This was well illustrated during the last war. Tenants went away to escape the bombs and left their houses unoccupied. The landlords accepted a reduced rent for the time they were empty. It was held that the landlords could not afterwards turn round and sue for the balance, see Central London Property Trust Ltd. v. High Trees House Ltd. This caused at the time some eyebrows to be raised in high places. But they have been lowered since. The solution was so obviously just that no one could well gainsay it.
In applying this principle, however, we must note the qualification: The creditor is only barred from his legal rights when it would be inequitable for him to insist upon them. Where there has been a true accord, under which the creditor voluntarily agrees to accept a lesser sum in satisfaction, and the debtor acts upon that accord by paying the lesser sum and the creditor accepts it, then it is inequitable for the creditor afterwards to insist on the
Danckwerts LJ said that the case of Foakes v Beer: "settled definitely the rule of law that payment of a lesser sum than the amount of a debt due cannot be a satisfaction of the debt, unless there is some benefit to the creditor added so that there is an accord and satisfaction."
1 Cites

1 Citers

[ Bailii ]
 
Patras v Commonwealth (1966) 9 FLR 152
1966

Lush J
Administrative, Estoppel
(Supreme Court of Victoria) The court distinguished decisions which are judicial from those which are purely administrative: "The underlying principle of this form of estoppel is that parties who have had a dispute heard by a competent tribunal shall not be allowed to litigate the same issues in other tribunals. When the decision-making body is an administrative body not affording the opportunity of presenting evidence and argument . . there is no room for the operation of this principle . . It appears to me that both upon the general language of the authorities . . and upon . . principle . . no estoppel can arise from a decision of an administrative authority which cannot be classed either as 'judicial' or as a 'tribunal' and that an authority cannot be given to either of those classifications if it is one which is under no obligation to receive evidence or hear argument."
1 Citers



 
 Carl Zeiss Stiftung v Rayner and Keeler Ltd (No 2); HL 1966 - [1967] 1 AC 853; [1966] 2 All ER 536; [1967] RPC 497; [1966] 3 WLR 125
 
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