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GAZETTE
JULY-AUGUST
1980
was (that a gift of the income of
property to a person without limita-
tion as to time was a gift of capital)
subject to the overriding principle
that the intention of the testator must
first be ascertained. By his will the
testator did not give the income of
any particular property and it
appeared from the continuity of the
clause, that he intended to give his
wife £1,500 per year for her life and
that he intended what remained to go
to the Parish of Bray after her death.
(2) That the gift of the residue was
a valid charitable gift and the matter
would stand over until the death of
the testator's widow for the
consideration of the application of
such funds, as would then be remain-
ing, undo* the circumstances then
existing in the Parish of Bray. The
authority of
In Re Smith, Public
Trustee v. Smith
(supra) (and the
cases
approved
therein)
was
accepted. The only indication of the
intention of the testator was that he
wished to benefit the Parish of Bray.
There was no indication of any parti-
cular purpose in his mind, or whether
he was thinking of die general public.
As he wished to benefit the parish, it
was reasonable to assume that if he
had appreciated that he could only do
this in a general way by giving the
residue specifically for charitable
purposes he would have adopted this
course. Therefore the gift in this case
had to be presumed to have been
intended for general charitable
purposes.
Anthony Patrick Duffy v. Mary
Doyle and the Attorney General —
High Court (per McWilliam J.) - 9
May, 1979 - Unreported.
LABOUR LAW
Redundancy Payments Acts —
Continuity of Employment.
This was an appeal from a decision of
the Redundancy Appeals Tribunal
("the Tribunal") that the employ-
ment of the Plaintiff prior to August
1962 could not be regarded as
continuous with her employment
after that date.
The Plaintiff had commenced
work for the Defendant in April 1945
and was made redundant on 13
August 1977. She claimed that she
had worked continuously for the
Defendant from April 1945 until
August 1977 but the Defendant
claimed that she had been out of its
employment from July 1961 to
August 1962. The Plaintiffs mother
had died in February 1961 and the
Plaintiff became run down and
suffered from neurasthenia. Her
doctor advised her to get away from
her environment for a while. She
decided to go to America for a time,
where she had some relations, and
she gave a doctor's certificate to the
Defendant's representative but did
not give him any details as to how
long she expected to stay in America,
when she intended to come back or
whether she intended to come back at
all. The Defendant's representative
stated so far as he was concerned the
Plaintiff was emigrating, that he had
no recollection of receiving a medical
certificate, that he did not, and had
no authority to, give her leave of
absence. The Plaintiff said she did
not get her social insurance cards
from the Defendant when she left in
July 1961.
The Plaintiff's doctor gave a
certificate for leave of absence from
work following her mother's death in
February 1961. No evidence was
given by the doctor but the Tribunal
had accepted a further certificate
from him dated 11 October 1977
which stated that the Plaintiff "took a
year's sick leave — neurasthenia —
August 1961 to August 1962". It
appeared that neither party stated
definitely in 1961 that the Plaintiff's
employment had terminated or was
to terminate. If the Plaintiff's
condition was such as had been
alleged and there appeared to be no
suggestion to the contrary, this
should have been apparent to the
Defendant. It was as much the
responsibility of the Defendant as of
the Plaintiff to make the position
clear.
The only question in issue was as
to whether the Plaintiff's employ-
ment was interrupted by a period of
not more than 78 consecutive weeks
by reason of sickness, or whether it
was interrupted by her voluntarily
leaving the Defendant's employ-
ment, within the meaning of para-
graphs 4 and 5 of Schedule Three of
the Redundancy Payments Act 1967
as amended by the Redundancy Pay-
ments Act 1971.
Held
(per McWilliam J.) that on
the evidence furnished to the Court
by the Tribunal it was clear that the
cause of the interruption in the
Plaintiffs employment was sickness
and that the Plaintiff's employment
prior to August 1962 should have
been regarded as continuous with her
later employment.
Clare Harte v. Telecord Holdings
Company Limited - High Court (per
McWilliam J.) - 18 May 1979 -
Unreported.
Summaries of judgments prepared
hv:
John F. Buckley
Hugh M. Fitzpatrick
Franklin J. O'Sullivan
Paula Scully
Michael Staines.
Edited by:
Michael V. O'Mahony.