63 / 736
from being heard undefended and awarded her
damages amounting in all to £1,060 in respect of
loss of maintenance for her son which he would
probably have been awarded had she defended the
divorce proceedings, loss of the chance of protec
ting a future maintenance claim for herself should
she cease to be able to work, and loss of the
chance of successfully defending the divorce suit.
The plaintiff also had claimed damages for men
tal distress, resulting from the defendant solicitor's
conduct of her case, but she was held not to be
entitled under this head, since her claim was in
contract not in tort. It was in respect of her claim
to damages for mental distress which, she claimed,
had brought on an anxiety state preventing her
from continuing her work, that she appealed.
The Court of Appeal held that, in principle,
damages for nervous shock were recoverable for
negligence by a solicitor in the conduct of his
client's case, but that in the particular circum
stances of Mrs. Cook's case the damage was too
remote. The reason why Mrs. Cook did not get
damages for the injury to her health was that she
was peculiarly liable to nervous shock—indeed the
history of her life showed one nervous breakdown
after another—but she had neither her nervous
breakdown as a result of his conduct of her
defence was
a
consequence
that was
not
reasonably foreseeable by him, and the damages
were too remote to be recoverable. The solicitor
who contrives to remain unaware of any abnormal
mental propensity in his client may well escape
liability in damages for nervous shock or anxiety
state occasioned by his conduct of the client';
litigation. (Cook v. S.
(1966)
1 All E.R. 248).
Dance
Licence
not
required
at
Wedding
Reception
The licensee of an hotel held a public music,
singing and dancing licence with a condition that
'the house shall not be opened for
.
.
. public
dancing, singing, music or other public entertain
ment during any part of Sunday' except with the
prior consent of justices'. The parents of a bride
desired to give to their invited guests after a
Jewish wedding on a Sunday, a reception and
dinner followed by a dance at the hotel, which
was to make no charge specifically allocated to
the dance band that would be provided. The
licensee applied to the justices for an extension
of the public music, singing and dancing licence.
At
the hearing
the police present conten
ded (i) that the fact that the function was for a
private party was irrelevant and, since no one
would be admitted unless some payment was
made to the hotel by the bride's parents who
would pay, members of the. pufelic would be ad
mitted on payment of money, contrary to the
provisions of the Sunday Observance Act, 1780,
in respect of 'any .
.
. place .
.
. opened or used
for public entertainment ... on ... Sunday, and
to which persons shall be admitted by the pay
ment of money'; and (ii) that, on the authority
of R. v. Hereford Justices, ex parte Newton
(1941) 1 K.B. 8, there was no jurisdiction under
the 1890 Act to grant, or remove a restriction on,
a licence for public dancing on Sundays. The
Justices refused the application on the grounds
that they had no jurisdiction to grant the exten
sion, and the licensee appealed.
Lord Parker, C..J, said that, on the assumption
that the parents paid a sum of money for the use
of rooms of the hotel for the function, they became
occupiers of the rooms,
the entertainment was
theirs and run by them, and that was not public
entertainment but was solely for invited guests,
and, accordingly, no licence was required. Enter
tainment was not private in all cases, however,
merely because those who came belonged to a
particular class of the public, and if an hotel
began to run Sunday dances for a club or series
of clubs that was not anything but public enter
tainment. In no sense was the entertainment in
this case provided by the hotel, and the justices
had no jurisdiction, but not on the ground that
the entertainment was 'public entertainment' for
bidden by
the Sunday Observance Act, 1780.
(Roe v. Harrogate Justices (Vol. 110)
Solicitors'
Journal
p.673).
Town Planning—Material Change in Use
In 1961 the site owner bought a 3-acre nursery
garden with a central building from which he
continued an established use of selling by retail
vegetables, fruit and flowers produced in the nur
sery. Within four years of 1965 he physically alte
red the building to give it some attributes of a
shop, and from it he sold not only the indigenous
produce but also oranges, lemons and bananas
which he imported, to the extent of some 10 per
cent of his total sales. In 1965 the local planning
authority served on him an enforcement notice
reciting development without the grant of plann
ing permission required under Pt. Ill of the
Town and Country Planning Act, 1962, and re
quiring him, inter alia, to discontinue the use of
the land 'for the purposes of a retail shop'. He
appealed to the Minister of Housing and Local
Government who considered that the use estab
lished before 1961 was a use incidental to the use
of the premises as a nursery, that the introduction
of the sale of imported produce had effected a
change in the character of the use to that of a
general greengrocer's shop, that that was a mate-
55