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dwelling give in the prescribed manner an
infected premises notice to the owner of
the dwelling,
the occupier shall be guilty of an offence under this
section and shall be liable on summary conviction
thereof to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds or,
at the discretion of the Court, to imprisonment for
a term not exceeding three months or to both such
fine and such imprisonment.
Section 35. Where
(a)
a person either—
(i) is concerned in selling or letting a
dwelling or showing a dwelling with
a view to its being sold or let, or
(ii) has ceased during the preceding three
months to occupy a dwelling, and
(H)
he is questioned by another person in
terested in such sale or letting as to whether
at any time during the preceding three
months a person has resided in the dwelling
while suffering from an infectious disease,
and
(f)
he makes to the question an answer which
is to his knowledge false or misleading in
any material particular,
he shall be guilty of. an offence under this section
and shall be liable on summary conviction thereof
to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds or, at the dis
cretion of the Court, to imprisonment for a term
not exceeding three months or to both such fine
and such imprisonment.
PROFESSIONAL ITEMS
THE practice, common in America, of a Company
(or Corporation, as it is there called), employing a
full-time
solicitor
is
becoming
established
in
England, and has now begun to spread to Scotland.
On the question being raised whether the Company
was entitled to retain any fees recovered by the
solicitor it was discovered that it was very doubtful
whether the Solicitors (Scotland) Act, 1933, covered
the case.
Sec. 37 prohibits acting for the profit of an un
qualified person, but there is an exception in favour
of a solicitor in the employment of a " public
Company." This term is nowhere defined, either
in the Act or in the Companies Act. The offence
too, is enabling an unqualified person to practise
as a solicitor.
Sec. 38 prohibits the sharing of fees with an un
qualified person. There is an exception here of
fees received by a public officer in respect of work
done in the course of his duty;
but what is a
" public officer " ; and does a prohibition of sharing
fees extend to passing over the whole fee ?
Again
sec. 39 prohibits unqualified persons from drawing
writs, and there is an excepting of a " public officer ";
so apparently a public officer is qualified in sec. 38
but unqualified in sec. 39.
Clearly the matter needs to be settled.
In England
the rule is that a solicitor who has agreed in con
sideration of a salary to do the legal work of an
employer who is not a solicitor may agree with
such employer to credit his employer with fees and
expenses recovered up to the extent of his salary and
expenses and reasonable office expenses, the excess
being retained by the solicitor.
The Council has asked that, if possible, a similar
rule should be introduced into the Solicitors Bill
and the terms " public officer " and " public com
pany " defined
therein.
(Scottish Law Gazette,
June, 1947.)
IN O'Donovan v. Cork County Council, 81 I.L.T.R.
133, the question in issue was whether the costs of the
registration of title to cottages, acquired by the local
authority in pursuance of improvement schemes,
and the registration of transfers
of
labourers'
cottages from one local authority to another, should
be taxed by the special taxing officer appointed by
the Minister for Local Government under Article
51
(e)
of the Labourers (Ireland) Order,
1912,
or by the Taxing Master of the High Court. The
question turned on whether the original registra
tion of the title and the registration of the transfers
respectively were part of improvement schemes and
it was held by the majority of the Court that no
distinction could be drawn between the two groups
and that the costs both of the registration of the
title and of the registration of the transfers should
be taxed by the Taxing Master of the High Court.
IN the Matter of the Trusts of the Will and Codicil
of Thomas Boyle, deceased, was reported unofficially
in the Irish Law Times and Solicitors' Journal of
October nth, 1947. This was a case on the subject
of the inability of a solicitor-executor to recover
costs in the event of his acting as a solicitor in the
administration of the deceased's estate. Mr. A.
was appointed executor under a will which contained
no provision enabling him to charge or be paid any
professional or other costs in the event of his acting
as
solicitor. On the death of the testator the
executor appointed Mr. B. a solicitor practising
in the same office but not as a partner of the solicitor
executor. Mr. B. had in fact been abroad during
the period of the administration of the estate and
had appointed Mr. A. to act for him to carry on his
business as a solicitor during his absence.
In
pursuance of this arrangement
the professional
work connected with the administration of the
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