99 / 736
the plaintiff's solicitors instructed a costs drawer
to draw up their bill of costs. This was done and
the bill forwarded to the solicitors in May of 1967.
In June 1967 the solicitors lodged the bill of costs
for £970 to be taxed. The defendant, acting in
person as he had done from the beginning of the
action contended that he had been prejudiced by
the delay and that there should be an order under
RSG Ord 62, r 7
(5) for a nominal sum. The
district registrar did not tax the bill but assessed
the costs at £750. The defendant appealed to the
judge who allowed the appeal, set aside the re
gistrar's assessment and referred the taxation of
the bill to a London Taxing Master. The defen
dant appealed.
The appeal was allowed by the Court of Appeal
(Lords Denning, Salmon and Davies.)
Denning, M. R. stated that there had been pro
longed and inexcusable delay in taxing the costs.
The defendant was entitled to know the amount
of his liability and be in a position to meet it.
Davies, L. J. agreeing, said the court was always
sympathetic to the difficulties caused by taxation
to both branches of the profession but two matters
were pertinent to the delay in this case,
(a) The plaintiff's solicitors did not attempt
to agree their costs with the defendant and
(b) The plaintiff's solicitors waited nearly a
year after receiving the defendant's letter remind
ing them of the need to draw up their bill of costs
before seeking the aid of a costs drawer.
(Drake and Fletcher Ltd. v. Clark—
Solicitors'
Journal
[Vol. 112] p. 95.)
Validity of Contract
The plaintiffs outside advertising contractors had
a number of agreements with site owners granting
them licences to erect and maintain boards or
hoardings on which
to display advertisements.
The defendant company obtained from the site
owners fresh agreements in one or other of two
types giving the defendant exclusive rights to post
advertisements on boards or hoardings on the sites.
In the first type the site owners were to take steps
immediately to determine any existing licences at
the earliest possible date, and
the defendant
obtained a separate document giving the defen
dant authority to determine the existing licences
as soon as legally possible. In the other type of
agreement the necessity for a separate document
was eliminated by including the authority in the
same document. On May 7th 1965 the defendant's
solicitors wrote to the plaintiffs enclosing a list of
218 sites as to which it claimed to have written
authority from 'the site owner' to terminate the
plaintiffs' agreements and purporting to give them
notice to
'cease occupation ... at the earliest
possible date after the service of this notice that
such agreement that you hold can be lawfully ter
minated'. The defendants refused the plaintiffs'
solicitors'
requests
for copies of such written
authority and on 14th May the plaintiffs wrote to
each site owner asking for confirmation. On 18th
August 1965 the defendant sent separate notices
to each of the plaintiffs in respect of each of the
218 sites as a precaution lest the earlier notices
were ineffective. Those notices purported to ter
minate the agreements with effect from 'the ear
liest possible date after service .
.
. which is per-
missable under the terms of your licence ... or at
law', and purported to be on behalf of named
site owners and to be without prejudice to the
earlier notice. Disputes having arisen concerning
removal of certain boards and hoardings by the
defendant, the plaintiffs issued a writ claiming an
injunction and damages and a preliminary issue
as to the validity of the defendant's notices, it was
argued,
inter alia,
that, the defendant being the
agent of the site owners the notices of May 7th
were invalid in that they were given by the solici
tors.
Buckley, .J, said that the relation of agent to
principal was normally confidential, the maxim
'delegatus non potest delegare' being based on that
confidence, but where the principal reposed no
confidence in the agent, the maxim did not apply.
The original letter must be read as if 218 letters
had been written, by compressing the notice into
one letter it has not affected their validity. Where
an agent gave notice on behalf of a principal it
was not necessary to name the principal; it was
sufficient if the principal could be identified. Here
there was no doubt as to what was meant by 'the
site owner'. The notices were therefore valid and
effective except where new agreements had been
entered into with plaintiffs after the defendant
had obtained authority from a site owner to deter
mine the agreement. Order accordingly.
(Allam & Co. Ltd. and Others v. Europa Poster
Services Ltd.—
Solidors' Journal
[Vol. 112] page
86.)
APPROPRIATE NOTICE
Periodically the
imagination of a preoccupied
typist runs riot, a recent notice to creditors in one
of the national papers, read as follows :—
"Notice is hereby given pursuant to Section 49
of the Dispossession Act, 1965".
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