622 / 736
London Cab Act, 1968. by suggesting that the car was
"presently available" for hire.
[Braeme v. Anderson & Another. Q.B.D.
The Times,
2 December, 1970.]
Local Government
Candidate cannot be appointed a holder of a per
manent office in a
Local Authority without
a specific
order from the County Manager.
The defendant County Council appealed from an
order of Teevan J. who had held that the plaintiff was
holder of a permanent office of Clerk of Works with
the Council. The plaintiff was first appointed tempor
arily for a period of 4 months; no renewals of this
appointment were made between 1951 and 1964 when in
April 1964 the County Manager made an order purport
ing
to continue the "temporary employment" of the
plaintiff and renewed this order every six months. In
December 1964 the County Council decided to create
four permanent posts, and they intimated what they
wanted
the plaintiff and three others who held
the
temporary post of Clerk of Works to be appointed to
those posts. The plaintiff then sought a declaration that
he held under the defendants a permanent post.
The Supreme Court (O'Dalaigh C.
J. Walsh and
McLoughlin J. J.) allowed the appeal. The Chief Justice,
delivering the judgment of the Court was of the opinion
that in Devanny v. Dublin Board of Assistance (1949)-
831
ILTR — Gavan Duffy P. was in a position to
hold that the plaintiff was a permanent officer because
the mode of appointment adopted was equally appro
priate to a permanent appointment as to a temporary
one. The decision of Dixon J., in Breslin v. Dublin Board
of Assistance (1956) 90 ILTR was approved; this was to
the effect that in 1947 the plaintiff was appointed tempor
ary clerical assistant to the stores staff officer and that his
temporary employment was continued by half-yearly
orders of the chief executive officer from 1950 to 23
March 1953, when he was dismissed. Dixon J. had
held that from 1947 the plaintiff was at no time a per
manent officer and that even his appointment as a tem
porary officer had been invalid on the ground that no
officer's scheme had come into force under the Regul
ations.
In
this case,
the contract purported to have been
created by an offer of the County Engineer acting on
behalf of the deputy County Manager which was
accepted by the plaintiff. However Section 19 of the
County Management Act 1940 by which a County
Manager in exercising his exclusive function of making
appointments could only do so by order, had not been
complied with. The appeal was accordingly allowed, and
the plaintiff's claim for a declaration that he was a
permanent officer was dismissed.
[Relihan v. Kerry Co. Council. Supreme Court un-
reported. 14 May, 1970.]
Master & Servant
Seven married women employees of a firm of solicitors
with individual contracts of service entered into a deed
of partnership to carry on the business of a secretarial
agency at the solicitors' offices and continued to do the
same work as before, the only difference being that all
their wages were paid to one of the partners for dis
tribution among
them. His Lordship held
that they
were still employed under contracts of service and that
the arrangement for paying their earnings in a lump
sum was merely an agreement as to the method where
by the individual partners should be paid under their
contracts of service.
[E. Rennison & Son v. Minister of Social Security.
Ch. Div.
The Times,
2 December, 1970.]
[See also Relihan v. Kerry Co. Council—ante.]
Natural Justice
A last year student, one of several seen naked on the
campus of the University of Keele last June, unsuccess
fully applied for an order preventing the university from
excluding him from residence during the remainder of
the academic year 1970-71, even though the University
had not complied with the rules of natural justice in ex
cluding him.
The Vice-Chancellor, stating that it would not be
right to set aside the University's decision because
it
was perfectly proper on the facts, dismissed the applic
ation for an injunction by Mr. Simon Glynn, of Hanley,
Staffordshire, directed against the University and the
Vice-Chancellor Mr. William Campbell Stewart, who did
not give Mr. Glynn a hearing before deciding to exclude
him from residence for the 1970-71 session and to fine
him £10.
[Glynn v. University of Keele and Another. Ch. Div.
The Times,
18 December, 1970.]
Negligence
When the Court granted leave to appeal to the House
of Lords in a case involving a child injured while tres
passing on a railway line, it said that the English law
on the question was in a confused state and should be
altered.
Their Lordships,
in reserved judgements, dismissed
an appeal by the British Railways Board from the de
cision of Mr. Justice Cairns in February awarding the
plaintiff, Peter Herrington, of Mitcham, £7,440 in respect
of injuries he received on June 7, 1965, when he fell on
a live electrified railway line. He was six at the time.
The judge had held that the defendant's were negligent
for
inter alia,
permitting the fence bounding the line
to remain in a dilapidated condition.
[Herrington v. British Railways Board.
Court of
Appeal.
The Times,
3 December 1970.]
A hospital was held to be negligent in allowing a
17-year-old patient known to be a suicide risk to climb
through a window, walk along a grass path and climb
up some steps on to a roof, from which he threw him
self to the ground where he was seriously injured.
[Selfa v. Ilford & District Hospital Management Com
mittee. Q.B.D.
The Times, 26
November, 1970.]
The Judical Committee, by a majority, held that a
declaration by a plaintiff in New South Wales claiming
damages against the Mutual Life Assurance Co. Ltd.
for giving him gratuitously negligent information and
advice did not disclose any cause of action and was not
within the principles laid down in Hedley Byrne & Co.
Ltd. v. Heller & Partners Ltd. ([1964] A.C. 465.)
[Mutual Life & Citizens Assurance Co. Ltd. v. Evath
Privy Council.
The Times,
17 November, 1970.]