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notice, they applied for and obtained an order
dismissing the action for want of prosecution.
Case 3.
In 1960 the Plaintiff issued a writ and
delivered a statement of claim alleging conspiracy
and fraud. A defence was delivered and the plead
ings were closed in 1961. Discovery was completed
by the end of 1963 and the plaintiff's solicitors
there after did little to proceed with the action.
The defendant being a company was dissolved in
1965 and an amended statement of claim was
delivered. In 1967 the defendant applied for and
obtained an order for the dismissal of the action
for want of prosecution.
Held that the appeals be dismissed in cases 1
and 3 as the plaintiff solicitors had been guilty of
inordinate delay; the plaintiffs would be left to the
remedies against the solicitors; that the appeal in
case 2 be allowed in as much as the defendants
themselves had been guilty of inordinate delay.
(Alien v. Sir Alfred McAlpine & Sons; Bostic v.
Bermondsey & Southwark Group Hospital Man
agement Committee; Sternberg v. Hammond
(1968) 2 W.L.R. 366; [1968] 1 All E.R. 543 C.A.)
Income Tax—A Tax-free car?
An employee who was given free use of a car by
his employer in return for a reduction in his wage
was not liable to tax under schedule E on his gross
wage before subtracting the sum in respect of the
car, or on the value of the use of the car since it
was not converted into money.
The employer introduced a voluntary car loan
scheme for such of their employees who earned
less than £2,000 a year and were not directors.
The employers bought, insured and licensed the
cars, and lent them to employees who applied for
them. A sum of money varying according to the
type of car was then subtracted from the weekly
wage of those employees. The tax payer joined the
scheme in 1961 and on his being lent the car a
sum of £2. 9. 0. was subtracted from his wage.
Held—
(1)
The transaction was a contract for the pay
ment of the wage less an amount to be calculated
in arriving at that wage, and not two contracts,
one for the payment of the wage, and an entirely
separate one for the deduction of the amount from
that, wage after it had been calculated. The sum
deducted was thereore not part of the taxable
gross wage.
(2)
The tax payer could not convert the use
of the car to money by selling or letting it on hire
since that was forbidden. Admittedly the tax payer
could turn the use of the car into money by sur
rendering it and resuming his original wage, but
this was not converting the use of the car into
money within the meaning of schedule E.
(Heaton [Inspector of Taxes] v. Bell. Court of
Appeal, Times May 9th, 1968.
Criminal Law, Sentence Unconstitutional
An absolute order of habeas corpus was granted in
the High Court to W. who was serving a sentence
of penal servitude in Portlaoise Prison and it was
ordered that he be released. W. had challenged
the legality of his detention and had been granted
an order of habeas corpus in December, 1967. He
had also lodged an appeal to the Court of Criminal
Appeal but later served notice of abandonment.
On March 14th the Court of Criminal Appeal
held that notwithstanding the note of abandon
ment it still had seisin of the appeal and made an
order varying the sentence imposed by Mr. Justice
Butler to one of four years penal servitude. It was
argued on behalf of W. that the warrant of the
Central Criminal Court and the warrant of the
Court of Criminal Appeal under which he was
being held in Portlaoise Prison were bad.
It was held by Mr. Justice Henchy that the
jurisdiction of the Court of Criminal Appeal was
limited in that neither the prosecution nor the
Court itself set its jurisdiction in motion in any
particular case. The convicted person may do so
in any one of three ways (i) he may apply for an
enlargement of time within which to serve notice
of appeal or notice of application for leave to
appeal; (ii) he may serve notice of application for
leave to appeal or (iii) he may serve notice of
appeal. Having taken one of these steps if he did
not wish to proceed he has an absolute and un
qualified
right
to abandon his application or
appeal; once exercised this right debars him from
further prosecuting his case before the Court and
from this it follows as a necessary corollary that the
Court no longer has any jurisdiction to deal with
the case. To hold otherwise would be to hold that
it may dispose of his case in his absence which
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