342 / 736
REGISTERS OF LAND BONDS
On and from the 1st October, 1969, the Registers
of Land Bonds at present kept by the Chase and
Bank of Ireland (International) Ltd., formerly
National City Bank Ltd., will be kept by the Bank
of Ireland, College Green, Dublin.
CIRCUIT COURT
(Alterations
of Circuit)
ORDER
1969—S.I. No. 201/1969
This order provides that, as from the 1st January
1970, the County of Wexford will be transferred
from the Eastern Circuit to the South Eastern
Circuit.
SOME RECENT DECISIONS
Solicitor not
liable as constructive
trustee
for
claims against the client's money in hands, if
he has a genuine claim for costs.
The Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung Foundation of East Ger
many claimed to be the original Zeiss Foundation
in Jena in East Germany, and in 1955 it brought
an action against another organisation or founda
tion called Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung of West Germany,
claiming
that
that foundation was wrongfully
using
the name
"Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung"
for
the
purposes of its business. In October 1967 it re-
amended its statement of claim in the action to
claim
that the business of
the West German
foundation was its property or was held in trust
for it, including the trade marks, trade names,
patents, goods and other assets of every kind of
that business, particularly those
in
the United
Kingdom, and that that foundation was liable to
account to it in respect of any dealings with
those assets. Complicated facts and difficult ques
tions of German and English law were involved
in the case. In March 1968, the East German
foundation brought a further action against the
two firms of solicitors who had acted for the West
German foundation in the original action, one up
to May 1964 and the other thereafter. It alleged
that each had received moneys in
the United
Kingdom from
the West German
foundation,
being part of its assets or moneys arising from its
trade or business, well knowing all the facts and
matters averred in the main action and with notice
that the moneys were the East German founda
tion's property. Each was,
therefore,
liable
to
account to the East German foundation for the
sums received, though not on the ground that they
had intermeddled with the alleged trust moneys
so as to be trustees de son tort. The solicitors
admitted receiving sums on account of fees, costs
and disbursements in the main action and ad
mitted knowing of the averments in that action.
It was admitted that they had acted honestly and
with complete propriety in receiving the sums and
that they could not know which way the main
action would go, even if the allegations in the re-
aracnded statement of claim were true.
Held by
the Court of Appeal
(Danckwerts,
Sachs and Edmund Davies, L.J.)
the action
against the solicitors must be dismissed, because—
(i) (per Danckwerts, L.J.) (a) knowledge of a
claim being made against the solicitors' client by
the other party was not sufficient to amount to a
not'ce of a trust or notice of misapplication of
moneys to make the solicitors constructive trustees,
particularly where unsolved questions of fact and
difficult questions of German and English law
were involved.
(b) at the date of the payment of their costs
and disbursements, the solicitors knew that the
moneys came from the West German foundation
and that there were claims against that founda
tion that all its property and assets belonged to
the East German foundation or we.e held on
trust for it, but not whether those claims were
well founded, and on the trial of a preliminary
issue in the action against the solicitors, the allega
tions contained in the statements of claim in both
the actions between the foundations could not be
assumed to be true.
(ii)
(per Sachs and Edmund Davies, L.JJ.)
(a) at the date of action, the solicitors did not
have such cognisances of the true ownership of the
property of the trusts as would make an ordinary
stranger a constructive trustee of the moneys, for
whatever the nature of the knowlede such notice
required, cognisance of a "doubtful equity" was
sot enough, and no stranger could become a con
structive
trustee merely because he was made
aware of a disputed claim the validity of which
he could not properly assess.
(b) the solicitors were also under no duty to
inquire into the allegations of fact in the state
ment of claim in the main actions or to make
inquiries or attempt to assess the result on the
law in such a complex matter.
Decision of Pennycuick, J. ([1968] 2 All E.R.
1233), affirmed on different grounds.
(Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung v. Herbert Smith (No. 2)
(1969) 2 A.E.R., 367).
Doctor cannot sue Solicitor in respect of Privileged
Evidence given in Court
No action for damages however, framed can be
brought against a witness for anything said in the
witness box in the course of judicial proceedings,
for public policy requires that a witness shall Toe
immune from civil action. When,
therefore, a
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