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Lottery
Prizes contained in tea packets or coupons offering a
motor
car
in packets
contravene
the Gaming and
Lotteries Act 1956 and are consequently illegal.
Messrs. Lyons & Co.
allegedly distributed £500
worth of prizes weekly in various denominations in tea
packets. The winner had also to answer the question :—
"Which
is
the largest producing tea country in
the
world ?" Messrs. Lever Brothers had a scheme whereby
10 Ford Capri cars were to be won, and the coupons
were placed in packets of "OMO", and questions had
to be answered on the reverse side of the coupon. In the
Director of Public Prosecutions v. Bradfute—(1967)
1. A.E.R. 112,—Lord Parker had fully considered the
meaning of "lottery" as
a distribution of prizes by
lottery or chance; the alleged tests in these cases were
held to be colourable and could be answered bv some
one else other than the finder. According to Bradfute,
the scheme there, as in this instance, was separable into
two stages; the first, the obtaining of the coupon, which
was a question of pure luck, and the second, the puzzle
involving a
little skill. Held, adopting Bradfute, that
no skill was required in the first stage, and the right
obtained hereby was
something of value and
thus
constituted in itself a prize. The scheme involved in its
first stage a lotterv, which was not contemplated by
the 1956 Act. Accordingly District Justice O'Flvnn's
decision
to convict the defendants and
to
fine
them
was correct. Appeal dismissed.
(Attorney-General v. Lever Brothers
(Ireland'1 Ltd.
and Attorney-General v. J. Lyons & Co. (Ireland) Ltd.
— Dublin Circuit Court — Judge Noel Ryan —
unreported — 6th April 1970).
Negligence
The Ministry of Transport were held
liable
in
damages to a young man who was paralysed from the
chest down after an accident in 1963. c?used b"
hi"
motor cycle running out of control on a stretch of
road where a layer of asohalt which had been
laid
down to obliterate double white linos had formed ridges
along the surface.
His Lordship gave
judgment for the plaintiff, Mr.
John
Bright,
now
aged
25,
of
Stevenage,
Hertfordshire, on a preliminary issue of liability. He
had claimed negligence on the part of the Ministry.
The final question was whether or not the state of
the road was due to the Ministry failing to take proper
care. If the work was not properly done it should have
been.
Bright v. Ministry of Transport, O.B.D. 2/6/'70.
Practice
Judge nor justified in withdrawing case from jury at
the conclusion of Plaintiff's evidence,
Plaintiff injured in Mayfield, Cork in August 1967
while travelling as a passenger in a motor van,
the
property of Defendants; the driver of the van died as
a result of the accident. Plaintiff and deceased driver
both lorry drivers in the employ of Musgrave Brothers,
Wholesale Grocers, Cork. Defendant's wholesale
tea
merchants of Cork;
the deceased used
to drive a
Musgrave lorry from Cork to Dublin and back each
week. On Saturday,
26th August,
1967, while
in
Dublin the defendants permitted the deceased driver to
drive the motor van from Dublin to Cork, provided
it was returned to Dublin by Monday morning. The
deceased and the plaintiff visited several nublic houses
in the Cork suburbs on the Sunday afternoon. After
the accident defendants admitted ownership of
the
motor van, but denied that the deceased driver was
their servant or agent, or acting within the scope of
their authority. In Barnard v. Scullv—(47 T.L.R.) —
the Court of Appeal held that it was for the jury to
determine whether at the material time the car was
being driven by his servant or agent and that there was
a presumption that the deceased, in driving the van,
had acted within
the scope of his authority, which
would have to be disproved before the
jury. Section
118 of the Road Traffic Act 1961 which lays down
that if a person uses a mechanically pronelled vehicle
with
the consent of the owner
the driver shall, as
regards the user, in the event of liability of the owner
for injury caused bv negligence, be deemed to use the
vehicle
as
the
servant
of
the
owner, was
next
considered.
Section 118 of the 1961 Art corresponds broadlv with
Section 172 of the 1933 Act. It follows that where a
consent can be implied, the onus of establishing that it
did not apply to the particular user in question in the
action shifts to the defendant. There was not sufficient
evidence here to show the fact that the deceased driver
used
the
van
for
private
or
social
purposes
prohibited bv
the defendants. The anoeal from
the
decision of the President (Mr. Justice O'Keeffe) with
drawing
the
case
from
the
jury was unanimous!"
allowed bv the Supreme Court (O'Dalaigh CJ., Budd
and Butler J.J.).
(Buckley v. Mussrave Brooke-Bond Ltd.—Supreme
Court—unreported—3rd November 1969).
Property
Where a father bv his will directed that a bungalow
belonging
to him should be
sold and
the proceeds
divided eauallv between five persons, one of whom was
his son who had lived continuous!" in the house before
and after the father's death, the son could not assert
against the legal owner of the bungalow that he was
an equitable
tenant
in common who could not be
turned out in a simple action for vacant possession of
the bungalow.
Barclay v. Barclay, Court of Appeal, 27/5/70.
Resale Price Maintenance
The Court, in the last case under the Resale Act,
1964, found that resale price maintenance on medicines
and drugs was in the public interest and accordingly
made orders declaring
that ethical and proprietary
pharmaceutical products were exempt from the general
ban on resale price maintenance imposed by the Act.
It was held that without resale price maintenance,
wholesalers would not hold such a wide range of ethical
drugs as at present so that there would be a substantial
reduction in varieties available for sale to the "ublic,
and that with price competition on proprietary drugs
supermarkets would take a greater share of the market
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