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Trusts - From: 1900 To: 1929

This page lists 45 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.

 
King v Hutton [1900] 2 QB 504; [1900] 83 LT 68
1900
CA

Trusts, Agency
"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 his principal, he is to pay over the proceeds in his hands – minus any commission payable – then he will ordinarily be a trustee. But where an agent is effecting both sales and purchases for his principal, or is discharging liabilities for his principal out of monies received, and he keeps a running account with periodic settlement dates at which he pays over the balance of account (if any), he will, ordinarily, be a debtor only – the debtor-only conclusion being reinforced if there are present in the accounts (1) set offs, other than for commission, or (2) interest charges on credits and debits".
1 Citers


 
Davie v Davies' Trustees (1900) 8 SLT 28
1900
OHCS
Lord Low
Trusts
A trust disposition which had confined the pursuer to a liferent for as long as the trustees exercised the discretion which they had been given to retain the capital was struck at by section 48 of the Act.
Entail Amendment (Scotland) Act 1848 47
1 Citers



 
 Williams v Scott; PC 1900 - [1900] AC 499
 
Re Walker [1901] 1 Ch 897
1901


Trusts, Charity

1 Citers


 
Te Teira Te Paea and Others v The Roera Tareha and Another [1901] UKPC 50; [1902] AC 56
9 Nov 1901
PC

Commonwealth, Land, Trusts
(New Zealand) The Board was asked whether certain lands allotted to the Maori chief were held for himself or as trustee for other natives.
[ Bailii ]
 
Re a Policy No 6402 of the Scottish Equitable Life Assurance Society [1902] 1 Ch 282
1902

Joyce J
Insurance, Trusts
Mr Sanderson effected insurance on his own life “for the behoof” of his sister-in-law, Miss Stiles. The policy moneys were payable to Miss Stiles or her personal representatives but the premiums were paid throughout by Mr Sanderson. The personal representatives of Mr Sanderson claimed the policy moneys from those of Miss Stiles to whom they had been paid. Held: “Now, in the present case a policy was taken out by Mr. Sanderson a great many years ago, and the name of Miss Stiles appears in the policy as the person to whom the money is to be paid. The policy was never handed to her, and she is now dead, and the premiums were always paid, and were paid for many years after her death, by Sanderson. That, really, is a case of a man taking a policy out in the name of another, that other person being a sister of his wife, and, therefore not standing in any relation to him “that would meet the presumption,” as Lord Eldon expressed it. It comes really to this: a purchase by one in the name of another with no other circumstances at all proved. Therefore, in my opinion, although the legal personal representative of the lady in this case would be the person entitled to receive the money at law and to give a receipt for it, in equity the money belongs to the legal personal representatives of Mr. Sanderson, who took out the policy.
1 Cites

1 Citers



 
 Wise v The Perpetual Trustee Company Limited (Executors of WH Paling (Deceased); PC 13-Dec-1902 - [1902] UKPC 59; [1903] AC 139
 
In Re Skinner [1904] 1 Ch 289
1904
ChD
Farwell J
Trusts
A beneficiary of a will trust brought an action for an account, having had little or no accounting from the executors and trustees (one a professional solicitor, entitled to charge) since the testator died more than two years before the action was commenced. The court made a full administration order, and the question whether the executor trustees should pay the costs was reserved. Held: After further argument, Farwell J held that the plaintiff was entitled to her costs. He said: "The gist of the complaints against the defendants . . is that they would not, and did not, render any proper accounts, though repeatedly requested to do so by the plaintiff and by . . their co-executor. Now it is clear that in the case of a small estate like this it is very hard that the plaintiff should be obliged to have recourse to proceedings of this nature in order to get an account. I am always unwilling to make trustees pay costs; but, on the other hand, beneficiaries have a right to expect the performance of their duty by executors, and not the less when one of them has power to make professional charges. In my opinion the conduct of these two defendants amounts to a gross neglect to account. "
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Re Lead Co.'s Workmen's Fund Society [1904] 2 Ch 196
1904


Trusts

1 Citers



 
 General Assembly of Free Church of Scotland v Overtoun; HL 1904 - [1904] AC 515

 
 Ideal Bedding Company Ltd v Holland; 1907 - [1907] 2 Ch 157
 
The Venture [1908] P 218
1908
CA
Farwell LJ
Trusts
Contributions were made to the purchase price of a yacht. Held: The court concluded that the contributor was entitled under a resulting trust to a pro rata equitable interest in the yacht. The payments were made at the time the yacht was purchased and for the purpose of the purchase.
Farwell LJ said: "On its being proved that Percy Stone had advanced a certain part of the purchase money, the presumption of law arose that he was beneficially entitled to a corresponding share in the yacht. It was for the plaintiff to displace that presumption by bringing evidence to the contrary; but she has entirely failed to bring any such evidence. The court must therefore give effect to the presumption, and must hold that, as the defendant paid a part of the purchase money, he acquired an interest in the yacht . ."
1 Citers


 
Lady Hood of Avalon v Mackinnon [1909] 1 Ch 476
1909

Eve J
Trusts, Equity
Lady Hood made an appointment in favour of her elder daughter, in order to place her in the same position as her younger daughter to whom she had already made large appointments. But in doing so she (and her solicitor) had forgotten that she had, several years before, made a large appointment to the elder daughter on her marriage. Held: the appointment to the elder daughter would be rescinded because Lady Hood, intending only to bring about equality between her daughters, was labouring under a mistake, since the effect of the appointment "was to bring about that which Lady Hood never intended and never contemplated."
1 Citers



 
 In Re Rhodesia Goldfields Ltd; ChD 1910 - [1910] 1 Ch 239

 
 Cloutte v Storey; 1911 - [1911] 1 Ch 18

 
 Re Coomber, Coomber v Coomber; ChD 1911 - [1911] 1 Ch 174

 
 Re Coomber; Coomber v Coomber; CA 2-Jan-1911 - [1911] 1 Ch 723

 
 In re Orphan Working School and Alexandra Orphanage's Contract; 1912 - [1912] 2 Ch 167; [1912] 81 LJ Ch 627; (1912) 107 LT 254
 
Stait v Fenner [1912] 2 Ch 504
1912

Neville J
Trusts, Agency, Landlord and Tenant
The lease to Fenner contained a break clause. The lease was legally assigned to X and then to Y. Y then agreed to assign back to Fenner (but no formal assignment was entered). Fenner then "assigned" to Z (the contract saying that he was not obliged to get in the bare legal estate outstanding in Y). Z then exercised the break clause. Held: The beneficiary under a bare trust is not thereby constituted the agent of the trustee. A break clause was operable by the tenant if he gave notice and if he should pay all the rent and perform all the covenants up to the determination of the lease. The question for the court was whether that condition for payment and performance was a condition precedent to be performed before the expiration of the term: "it must have been intended, in construing a covenant of this kind, that the question whether the lease does or does not exist after the expiration of the seven or fourteen years should be capable of being decided there and then and not left to future contingency leaving both the lessor and the lessee in uncertainty as to whether they are bound by the lease or whether they are not." In this case the condition was a condition precedent.
Neville J held: "In my opinion, the legal estate in the term being outstanding, it was not competent for the lessee or any assignee of the lessee who had not the legal estate vested in him to give a notice."
1 Citers



 
 Dunne v Byrne; 1912 - [1912] AC 407

 
 Pullan v Coe; ChD 1913 - [1913] 1 Ch 9

 
 Henry v Hammond; KBD 1913 - [1913] 2 KB 515 DC
 
Sinclair v Brougham [1914] AC 398; [1914-15] All ER 622
1914
HL
Viscount Haldane
Insolvency, Equity, Trusts
An insolvent building society had, outside its powers, run a banking business. The House considered the competing claims of the unadvanced shareholders of the building society's intra vires business, members of the society who had not been granted mortgages, and the depositors of its ultra vires banking business. The claims of all other creditors had, by agreement, been met. It was accepted that contracts entered into for the purposes of that ultra vires business, which by the time of bankruptcy had become the society's predominant business, were, so far as the society was concerned, void. The issue was the significance of that fact for the priority of claims of the shareholders and the depositors to the funds held by the Liquidators. In the High Court and the Court of Appeal the unadvanced shareholders prevailed: the depositors' contracts were held void, and therefore would only be honoured to the extent that all prior valid claims had been met. Held: The competing claims for priority of both the unadvanced shareholders and the depositors were declined. The available funds were to be shared pro rata, an outcome that had not been considered until raised by Viscount Haldane during argument.
Viscount Haldane approached the question by assuming that specific tracing was not possible and, on that basis, concluding that pro rata sharing was the way to apportion the monies: "The depositors can, in my opinion, only claim the depreciated assets which represent their money, and nothing more. It follows that the principle to be adopted in the distribution must be apportionment on the footing that depreciation and loss are to be borne pro rata. I am, of course, assuming in saying this that specific tracing is not now possible.
What is there must be apportioned accordingly among those whose money it represents, and the question of how the apportionment should be made is one of fact. In the present case the working out of a proper apportionment based on the principle of tracing not only would involve immense labour but would be unlikely to end in any reliable result. The records necessary for tracing the dealings with the funds do not exist. We have therefore, treating the question as one of presumption of fact, to give such a direction to the liquidator as is calculated to bring about a result consistent with the principles already laid down.
1 Citers



 
 Bank of Scotland v Hutchison Main (in liquidation); HL 6-Feb-1914 - 1914 SC (HL) 1; [1914] UKHL 3; [1914] AC 311; (1914) 1 SLT 111
 
Rosco v Winder [1915] 1 Ch 62
1915


Trusts

1 Citers



 
 Murray v Murray's Tutor; 1915 - 1915 1 SLT 34
 
In Re Peruvian Railway Construction Co Ltd [1915] 2 Ch 144
1915

Sargant J
Trusts, Insolvency
William Alt died insolvent in 1908. His estate included shares in the company, which went into voluntary liquidation in 1914. Alt owed the company £2,633. Held: In the distribution of the company's surplus assets the liquidator could retain out of the fund, on account of Alt's debt, only the amount of the dividend on the debt. Sargant J distinguished other cited authorities as having "an entire absence of the special feature present in Cherry v Boultbee and in the case before me, namely, the insolvency of the original debtor before the right of retainer or quasi set-off had first arisen." He restated the Cherry v Boultbee rule: "where a person entitled to participate in a fund is also bound to make a contribution in aid of that fund, he cannot be allowed so to participate unless and until he has fulfilled his duty to contribute."
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Burrell v Burrell's Trustees [1915] SC 333
1915
CS
Lord Dundas, Lord Mackenzie
Trusts, Scotland
The Court of Session considered the applicability of the rule against self dealing as it applied to the wives of trustees. The wives in question were wealthy members of the Burrell shipping family who in each case were "capable business women accustomed to manage their own ample means", who bought shares from the family trust of which their husbands were trustees, out of their own means and on their own initiative. Only if the strict rule applied, would the court set aside the purchase. Held: Neither authority nor principle required the rule's strict application. Lord Mackenzie "The category under which it apparently falls is the category which is referred to by Lord Justice Cottenham in Ferraby v Hodson in terms to which every Court must subscribe: "Trustees expose themselves to great peril in allowing their own relatives to intervene in any matter connected with the execution of the trust; for the suspicion which that circumstance is calculated to excite, where there is any other fact to confirm it, is one which it would require a very strong case to remove." Therefore I venture to remark that in all cases of this class the Court will seek to be certain, by vigilant scrutiny, of the true nature of such a transaction; because one can readily see that the close relationship between husband and wife may, unless the nature of the transaction is explained, give rise to the not unnatural inference that the husband was truly the party intervening in the case, and that not without benefit to himself."
1 Citers


 
James Roscoe (Bolton) Ltd v Winder [1915] 1 Ch 62
1915

Sargant J
Trusts
A company sold its business under an agreement containing a promise by the purchaser to collect on behalf of the vendor the amount of the book debts owed to it at the date of the agreement. From the sums collected, the purchaser paid £455 into his general bank account, but he failed to account for the money to the vendor and made drawings from the account which reduced it at one stage to £25. He later made payments into the account from an unrelated source, and died with a balance in his account of £358, to which the vendor claimed to be beneficially entitled. Held: The maximum which the vendor was entitled to trace was £25, representing the lowest sum to which the balance on the account had fallen between the payment of the £455 into the account and the purchaser's death, on the ground that at that date of the lowest balance the purchaser must have denuded the account of all the trust moneys except to the extent of £25.

 
Re Boyer's Settled Estates [1916] 2 Ch 404
1916

Sargant J
Trusts, Landlord and Tenant
A right to reside shared by two persons was recognized as a valid and effective right. Sargant J said: "I think that the effect of s58 is, broadly speaking, to give to the large class of persons comprised in the nine headings of subs(1) of s58 the powers of a tenant for life, although they are not strictly tenants for life by reason of their estates not being strictly estates for life. But, apart from that, I think that the persons who are dealt with under s58 are persons who fall within the general defining provisions of s2(5), under which in determining tenancy you have to regard beneficial title to possession".
Settled Land Act 1882 2(5) 58
1 Citers



 
 In re Moxon; 1916 - [1916] 2 Ch 595
 
Re Burroughs-Fowler [1916] 2 Ch 250
1916


Insolvency, Trusts


 
Moody v Cox and Hatt [1917] 2 Ch 71
1917
CA
Lord Cozens-Hardy MR, Scrutton LJ, Warrington LJ
Legal Professions, Land, Trusts
An action was brought for rescission of a contract of sale of a public house and four cottages, with a counterclaim for specific performance. The sellers, Hatt and Cox, were respectively a solicitor and his managing clerk. They were the trustees of a will trust, and were selling as such. In addition Hatt acted as solicitor for the purchaser Moody. The contract price was £8,400. Moody complained that Cox had failed to disclose to him a valuation showing the property to be worth less than the contract price, and that Cox had expressly asserted that the cottages were worth £225 each when he knew that they were worth less. A "clean hands" issue arose from the fact that Moody had paid two sums of £100 to Cox as a sweetener. Since Hatt and Cox were selling as trustees, they had a duty to their beneficiaries to obtain the best price reasonably obtainable. It was argued that this modified the extent of Hatt's duty, as a solicitor, to Moody as his client. Held: The argument was decisively rejected. A fiduciary with two principals must take care not to find himself in a position where there is an actual conflict of duty so that he cannot fulfil his obligations to one principal without failing in his obligations to the other:
Lord Cozens-Hardy MR said: "A man may have a duty on one side and an interest on another. A solicitor who puts himself in that position takes upon himself a grievous responsibility. A solicitor may have a duty on one side and a duty on the other, namely, a duty to his client as solicitor on the one side and a duty to his beneficiaries on the other; but if he chooses to put himself in that position it does not lie in his mouth to say to the client 'I have not discharged that which the law says is my duty towards you, my client, because I owe a duty to the beneficiaries on the other side'. The answer is that if a solicitor involves himself in that dilemma it is his own fault. He ought before putting himself in that position to inform the client of his conflicting duties, and either obtain from that client an agreement that he should not perform his full duties of disclosure or say - which would be much better - 'I cannot accept this business.' I think it would be the worst thing to say that a solicitor can escape from the obligations, imposed upon him as solicitor, of disclosure if he can prove that it is not a case of duty on one side and of interest on the other, but a case of duty on both sides and therefore impossible to perform."
Scrutton LJ referred to evidence given by the defendant solicitor, Mr Cox to the effect that he, Cox, knew that the price the client, Moody, was paying for the cottages was a good deal more than the value that had been placed on the cottages for probate purposes and that he, Cox, had not told the client the amount of the probate valuation.
He continued: "A man who says that admits in the plainest terms that he is not fulfilling the duty which lies upon him as a solicitor acting for a client. But it is said that he could not disclose that information consistently with his duty to his other clients, the cestius que trust. It may be that a solicitor who tries to act for both parties puts himself in such a position that he must be liable to one or the other, whatever he does. The case has been put of a solicitor acting for vendor and a purchaser who knows of a flaw in the title by reason of his acting for the vendor, and who, if he discloses that flaw in the title which he knows as acting for the vendor, may be liable to an action by his vendor, and who, if he does not disclose the flaw in the title, may be liable to an action by the purchaser for not doing his duty as solicitor for him. It will be his fault for mixing himself up with a transaction in which he has two entirely inconsistent interests, and solicitors who try to act for both vendors and purchasers must appreciate that they run a very serious risk of liability to one or the other owing to the duties and obligations which such curious relation puts upon them."
1 Citers



 
 Gascoigne v Gascoigne; 1918 - [1918] 1 KB 223
 
Turnbull's Trustees v Lord Advocate [1918] UKHL 3; 1918 1 SLT 112; 1918 SC (HL) 88
29 Jan 1918
HL

Scotland, Wills and Probate, Trusts

[ Bailii ]

 
 O'Rourke v Darbishire; HL 1920 - [1920] AC 581; [1920] All ER 1

 
 Clarkson and Another v Davies and Others; PC 23-Oct-1922 - [1922] UKPC 79; [1923] AC 100

 
 Clarkson v Davies; PC 1923 - [1923] AC 100

 
 Jaenicke v Schulz; 1924 - [1924] 4 DLR 488
 
Douglas George Wright (Appeal No. 46 of 1926) v Florence Jenny Myra Morgan and Others [1926] UKPC 2; [1926] UKPC 69; [1926] AC 788
12 Jul 1926
PC
Lord Dunedin
Trusts
(New Zealand) a trustee may not purchase trust property
[ Bailii ] - [ Bailii ]
 
Williams v Barton [1927] 2 Ch 9
1927

Russell J
Trusts
A trustee, who recommended that his co-trustees use stockbrokers who gave him a commission, held the commission on trust for the trust.
1 Citers


 
In re Douglas [1928] 29 SR (NSW) 48
1928


Commonwealth, Trusts
(New South Wales) The court considered the application of the rule against self dealing as it applied to trustees' wives: "the Court of Equity would presume that the contract was for the benefit of the trustee, and evidence would be required to displace this presumption."
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Middleton, Petitioner 1929 SC 394
1929

Lord Blackburn
Scotland, Trusts
Section 47 applied to any trust deed dated after 1 August 1848.
Entail Amendment (Scotland) Act 1848 47
1 Citers


 
Re Raine [1929] 1 Ch 716
1929


Trusts, Wills and Probate
Intermediate income is not payable on a contingent pecuniary legacy unless there is an express testamentary provision to the contrary. The interest falls into residue until the legacy vests.

 
Galloway v Galloway 1929 SC 160
1929


Scotland, Trusts

1 Citers


 
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