The Gazette 1961

The conditions for payment of full benefit are

(i) that not less than 26 employment contributions

have been paid on behalf of the claimant, and

(z) that 48 contributions have been paid or credited

to the claimant for the contribution year preceding

the year in which benefit is claimed (i.e., to the

preceding 3151 December).

COUNTY KERRY LAW SOCIETY

At the annual general meeting of the above

society held at the Court House, Tralee, on the

ist day of December, 1962, the following officers

and committee were appointed for the year 1962/63 :

President: Mr. Gerald Baily; Vice-President:

Mr. John D. O'Connell; Chairman : Mr. Charles J.

Downing ; Secretary and Treasurer : Mr. Donal M.

King;

Committee: Messrs. D. E. Browne,

D. J. Courtney, W. A. Crowley, H. J. Downing,

J. J. Grace, M. L. O'Connell, J. J. O'Donnell,

J. S. O'Reilly and D. Twomey.

DECISIONS OF PROFESSIONAL

INTEREST

Vendor and purchaser—contract with date of completion

left blank—intention of parties

In March, 1959, a prospective purchaser entered

into negotiations for the purchase of a house with

the vendor, at whose suggestion it was agreed that

the vendor's solicitor should act for both parties ;

it was further agreed that completion should take

place on September 30, 1959.

In June, 1959, the

purchaser paid the defendant a deposit. On July 2,

1959, the solicitor sent a written form of contract

to the purchaser who signed it and sent it to the

vendor who also signed it on July 5, 1959, and took

it to the solicitor. On July 7, the vendor informed

the solicitor that he wished to extend the completion

date until the end of October instead of September

and told him that the contract was to be held " pro

tern, for instructions ". Both the vendor and the

purchaser thought that the contract would not

become binding unless and until it had been

exchanged. The contract was undated and the date

for completion left blank but it was subject to the

National Conditions of Sale by which the date could

be ascertained if the parties failed to agree. Shortly

after receiving the contract the solicitor dated it and

filled in the date for completion as September 30,

1959. On August n, 1959, the purchaser and the

vendor orally agreed that the date for completion

should be postponed until October 16, 1959, but

that alteration of the date was never put in the

contract.

The vendor' subsequently refused to

complete the contract.

In an action by the purchaser for specific perfor

mance Wilberforce J. held there was no enforceable

contract. On appeal by the plaintiff:—

Held, that as the parties had agreed to September

30 as the date for completion and had signed the

contract (the solicitor quite properly inserting at

a later stage September 30 as the date for completion)

there was a binding agreement which could not be

varied by oral evidence of uncommunicated thoughts

or reservations of the vendor ; alternatively, that if

no completion date had been agreed, condition 4 of

the National Conditions of Sale provided a time for

completion and that therefore the purchaser was

entitled to specific performance of the contract, or

there was a sufficient memorandum in writing by

virtue of certain letters of an oral agreement on

August ii making October 16 the date for com

pletion.

(Smith

Mansi, 1963

Weekly Law

Reports,

page 26.)

Costs wasted—responsibility of solicitors for costs thrown

away

A husband petitioned for divorce. The petition

was duly served on the wife, who took it to her

solicitors. She was seen by T, a partner in the firm ;

she handed him the petition and told him that she

wished to defend the suit.

She said that she no

longer lived at the address shown in the petition.

She also handed him a letter from the husband's

solicitors addressed to her at her new address.

Subsequently, T sent the wife a number of letters

addressed to her old address, but he received no

reply to any of these letters. In the result, the wife

heard nothing about the proceedings until after the

husband had been granted a decree nisi in an

undefended suit. The wife changed her solicitors

and successfully moved the Divisional Court for

an order rescinding the decree nisi and directing

a rehearing of the suit, leave being given to the wife

to file an answer to the petition. The question arose

as to who should pay the husband's costs thrown

away.

Cairns, J., said that it was the duty of a solicitor

to make quite sure that he had his client's correct

address.

The fact that no reply was received to

communications sent to the wife should have put

T on inquiry. In the result, T, in perfect good faith

but with a lack of that diligence which it was the

duty of solicitors to observe, failed to ascertain or,

if he did ascertain, failed to note, his client's change

of address, an indication of which was apparent

from documents in his possession.

It was a case

in which an order under r. 8 (i) (<;) of the Supreme

Court Costs Rules, 1959, would be made against

the firm in which T was, at the material time, a

partner condemning them in the costs thrown away

by the husband in the abortive suit and also in the

costs incurred by him in the wife's motion for the