197 / 294
was no longer a person ''driving or attempting to drive" a
motor vehicle on a road or ether public place. The Lord
Chancellor and Viscount Dilnome gave a new interpretation
to the relevant section—Section 2 (1) (a) of the Road Safety
Act, 1967.
[Sakhuja v Allen; House of Lords (1972) 2 A.E.R. 31 i]
Conveyancing
In deciding under Section 222 (0 of the Companies Act, 1948,
whether it is "just and equitable" that a company should he
wound up it is permissible to take into account, among other
factors, the fact that the company has been formed or con-
tinued on the basis of a personal relationship involving mutual
confidence, though it may be confusing to talk of its being a
"quasi-partnership".
[Ebrahimi v Wcsthourne Galleries Ltd. and Others; House
of Lords (1972) e A.E.R. 492]
On the law as it stood, a charge in favour of the landlord
imposed by a schcmc under Section 19 of the Leasehold Reform
Act, 1967, on enfranchised property would make it impossible
for a building society to advance money on the property to
the enfranchised owner unless it provided that the charge in
favour of the landlord be postponed to any possible future
mortgage that might be made to a building society.
[In re Abbots Park Estate (No.2); ch. D. (Pennycuick
V.C.)—(1972) 2 A.E.R. 177]
Contract
The word "condition" used in one subclause of a distributor-
ship agreement between a German firm and an English com-
pany, by which the English company was to send a represen-
tative to visit the six biggest United Kingdom motor manu-
facturers every week over four years to solicit orders for large
panel presses was held by a majority of the Court of Appeal
not to be a term a single breach of which would entitle the
erman firm to repudiate the whole contract.
[Wickman Machine Tools Sales Ltd. v L. Schuler AG;
C.A.; 27/4/1972.]
Their Lordships dismissed an appeal by buyers of Nigerian
cocoa in a dispute which arose from the devaluation of sterling
in 1967. In the Court of Appeal it was said that the cotton as
well as the coloa trade was interested in the decision, and that
£6m was involved.
Their lordships held that where the sellers of the cocoa,
Nigerian Produce Marketing Co. Ltd., under fourteen contracts
in which the purchase price was expressed to be in Nigerian
pounds stated in a letter to the buyers' agents that "payment
can be made in sterling", that did not amount to a variation
of the purchase price or give rise to a promissory estoppel
preventing the sellers from disavowing such a variation.
[Woodhouse AC Israel Cocoa and Another v Nigerian
Produce Marketing Co. Ltd.; House of Lords; (1972) 2 A.E.R.
271]
The National Industrial Relations Court imposed a fine of
£30,000 on the Transport and General Workers Union, already
fined £5,000 for its continuing contempt of the Court in
defying the order of the Court to allow access to lorries
belonging to Heaton's Transport (St. Helen's) Ltd. and Crad-
dock Brothers to the Liverpool docks.
If the fine is not paid by May 4 leave was granted to issue
writs of sequestration against the union. And the Court gave a.
warning that if there are further complaints of contempt it
would consider ordering the seixure and retention by the
commissioners executing the writs of all the union's assets
and property until the contempt had been purged.
Court of Appeal reversed this decision on the ground that
the shop stewards were not the servants of the union and the
union was not vicariously liable for their acts.
[Heaton's Transport (St. Helen's) Ltd. v Transport and
General Workers Union; Craddock Brothers v Same; (1972)
3 W1 . R. 73]
'
A builder who agreed to buy a house from a woman and in
consideration therefor to erect for her a new house on land
belonging to her was refused an order for specific performance
of the agreement.
[Doyle v East; Chancery Division; 21/4/1972.]
The position of a guarantor who had guaranteed that another
person would perform his obligations under a contract to pay
off a debt by instalments was considered by their Lordships.
They decided that where a creditor accepted the wongful
repudiation by the debtor of a contract wnich included the
guarantee, the guarantor ws> thereby also in breach of his
contract of guarantee and the creditor could sue the guarantor,
not for the uupaid instalments but for damages, sine* histori-
cally the liability of a surety at common law sounds in dam-
ages rather than in debt.
The House dismissed an appeal—by a differvut process ot
reasoning—by Mr. G. Moschi, formerly managing director of
Rolloswin Investments Ltd. (now in liquidation) from the
Court of Appeal (Lord Justice Daviei, Lord Justice Karminski
and Lord Justice Megaw) ([1971] 1 WLR 934), which had held
that he was liable for the net outstanding instalments of the
company's debt under the repudiated contract to Lep Air
Services Ltd., of Shulton Street, WC, the creditors.
[Moschi v Lep Air Services Ltd. and Others; House of
Lords; 27/4/1972.]
When a commission agent's agency is terminated, he is, in the
absence of express and reasonable restriction, free to canvass
the customers of the old firm on his own behalf, or on behalf
of any new principal for whom he bccomes agent. In most
cases his right remedy is compensation in a money sum and
not a declaration that he is entitled to commission in the
future on orders received by his former principal from custo-
mers introduced by him.
[Roberts v Elwells Engineers Ltd.; C.A.; 12/5/1972.]
Costs
The Court of Appeal (the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Justice
Roskill and Mr. Justice Talbot) decided that payment of costs
out of centra] funds cannot be ordered in favour of a successful
respondent to a criminal appeal. They were giving judgment
refusing an application for costs order by the British Trans-
port Docks and Harbour Board, respondents to an unsuccessful
appeal by Patrisk Rimmer against his conviction on the
board's prosecution, for stealing from t Dutch ship
(The
Times,
November 26).
[Regina v Rimmer; C.A.; 1/5/1972.]
The House of Lords made an order without precedent in
reported cases when they varied a resolution as to costs which
the House made on February 23 ([19721 2 WLR 645). Their
Lordships allowed a petition by Cassel & Co. Ltd., publishers
of
The Destruction
of Convoy PQ 17
by Mr. David Irving,
to amend the order that Cassells should pay all the costs of
Captain John Broome, RN (retrd), the plaintiff in a libel
action arising out of the book.
[Cassell & Co. Ltd. v Broome and Another; House of Lords;
1/5 1972.]
Family
Section 1 (2) of the Matrimonial Homes Act, 1967, which pro-
vides that the Court may make "an order . . regulating the
exercise by either spouse of the right to occupy the dwelling
house", docs not empower the Court to make an order wholly
prohibiting a spouse from exercising his or her right to occupy
' [Tarr v Tarr; House of Lords; (1972) — A.E.R. 295]
His Lordship dismissed with reluctance an undefended petition
by the English wife of an American ex-serviceman for a decree
of nullity of marriage on the ground of lack of jurisdiction as
she has lived in England for l as than three years after leaving
her husband and returning from the United States.
[Kern v Kern; Family Division; 11/3/1972.]
A voluntary mental patient can validly consent to the grant of
a decree of divorce under Section 2 (1) (d) of the Divorce
Reform Act, 1969. The test for validity of consent for dissolu-
tion of marriage is the same as the test for contracting a
marriage.—Mason v Mason—Sir George Baker
[Family Division; 19/5/1972.]
Insurance
A company whose car was insured under a "named drivers"
policy were held not to be entitled to recover from the insurers
when the car was damaged while it was being driven by a
person having no authority to drive it. His Lordship dismissed
a claim by Greenleaf Associated Ltd., of London, for £923
against a Lloyd's syndicate. Barbican Motor Policies, for whom
the defendant was the representative underwriter.
[Greenleaf Associates Ltd. v Monksfield; Q.B.D.; 14/4/72.]
Landlord and Tenant
A tenant may be granted a new tenancy of business premises
although substantial work which has to be done to make the