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The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.
[FEBRUARY, 1912
Mr. A. B. Kellv (who carries on the business)
under the style of Kelly and McGonigal.
MR. ROBERT A. Ros=? TODD, Solicitor, Bally-
shannon, died upon the 19th January. 1912,
at Ballyshannon.
Mr. Todd, who served his apprenticeship
with Mr. J. M. Ross Todd, 14- Westmoreland
Street, Dublin, and the late Mr. Paul Dane,
of Ballyshannon, was admitted in Trinity
Sittings, 1880, and practised (formerly in
partnership with the late Mr. Dane) at Bally
shannon, under the style of Dane and Todd.
Recent Decisions affecting Solicitors.
(Notes of decisions, whether in reported or
unreported cases, of
interest to Solicitos,
are invited from Members.)
COUNTY COURT.
(Before His Honour Judge Overend, Recorder
of Londonderry).
Proctor
v.
Limavady Rural District Council.
January 13, 1912.—
Labourers Acts costs—
Furnishing title on behalf of
judicial
tenant who has signed an agreement to
•purchase under Land Purchase Acts—
Labourers (Ireland) Order,
1910.
THIS was a Civil Bill heard at Limavady, in
which James E. Proctor, Solicitor, sued for
the sum of £2 10s. Id., amount of a Bill of
Costs for furnishing title to a plot of land
taken by
the Limavady Rural District
Council under the Labourers Acts as a site
for Labourers' Cottages.
Dr. J. C. B. Proctor, Solicitor, appeared for
the Plaintiff, and Mr. William Homer,
Solicitor, for the Defendants.
Dr. Proctor, stating the case, said that
Mr. J. E. Proctor, Solicitor, acted for Martha
Crilly, on whose land a site had been taken
by the Limavady Rural Council for the
erection of a labourer's cottage. Martha
Crilly was a judicial tenant, and had signed
an agreement for the purchase of her holding
under the Land Purchase Act of 1903. The title
was furnished in January, 1911, to Mr. Horner
as Solicitor for the Council, and plaintiff's bill
of the title costs was sent to the defendants,
and amounted to £2 10s. Id., which was made
up of £2 2s. Od. fee and outlay. On the 8th
September, 1911,
the plaintiff received a
letter from the Clerk of the Council saying
j
that as the holding of his client was a judicial
tenancy, a fee of half-a-guinea was all that
was payable for deducing title in respect of
same under the Labourers (Ireland) Order,
1910.
Dr. Proctor stated that before the
Local Government Board Order of 1910 the
position was as
follows :—A solicitor for
furnishing title on behalf of an owner or
lessee was entitled under Rule 55, Clause 5
of the Labourers (Ireland) Order, 1909, to
tax his bill of costs drawn in accordance 'with
the scale in the Order, or under Clause 8, he
could accept at his option a composite fee
the amount of which varied in respect to the
amount
of
compensation payable.
For
furnishing an abstract of title on behalf of an
occupier a sum not exceeding 10s. 6d. was
payable under Clause 9, and it was decided
by the Lord Chief Baron in
Elliott v. Stranorlar
Rural District Council
that a judicial tenant
was a lessee, and accordingly that a Solicitor
furnishing title on behalf of a judicial tenant
was entitled to lessee costs.
Subsequently
the Labourers (Ireland) Order, 1910, was
issued, and it -provided that " where land is
" taken from an occupier who is neither
" owner nor lessee thereof, the fee payable
" by the Council for all expenses incurred in
" respect of the employment of a Solicitor
" by him for the purpose of deducing title
" to his occupation interest, shall be the sum
" of ten shillings and sixpence," and that
" in the construction and for the purposes of
" this Rule
the expressions
' owner' or
" ' lessee ' shall not extend to or include
(a)
"
any tenant of a holding subject to a
" judicial rent fixed or agreed to under the
"Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, and the
" Acts amending the same ;
(b)
any tenant
" holding under a tenancy from year to year
" or any lesser tenancy ;
or (r) any such
" tenant as is hereinbefore in this Clause
" mentioned who has entered into an agree-
" ment for the purchase of his holding under
" the Land Purchase Acts, but in whom such
" holding is not yet vested under the said
" Acts."
The question, therefore, here was :
has the
Local Government Board gone outside the
scope of the powers vested in them by
Section 31 of the Labourers (Ireland) Act,
1906, and is the Order of 19.10 partially
ultra vires?
Dr. Proctor admitted the Local
Government Board had power to say what