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BOOK REVIEWS
Lawson (R. H.)—Remedies of English Law. 20 cm.;
367p; London: Penguin Books, 1972. Collection "Law
and Society' '(Paperback). £1.50.
Professor Lawson has exposed in a clear and erudite
fashion the remedies that are available to a person,
who seeks a legal remedy, having failed to obtain
restitution. The limitations of self-help, whether by pre-
venting trespass, or entering upon the lands without a
Court order, are fully explored. The damage of penalty
clauses is mentioned and the manner in which liquid-
ated damages can be asked for and awarded is fully
treated. Money remedies arise essentially • from a
breach of contract, quasi-contract, trust, or from com-
mitting a tort. Whereas a liquidated debt is an amount
claimed before the trial, there are several sums which
are only assessed in the course of the trial, such as (1)
the value of goods supplied, (2) the loss suffered by
the plaintiff at the hands of the defendant, (3) a
nominal sum awarded in vindication of a right, (4)
a penal sum marking disapproval of the defendant's
conduct, (5) the unjustified enrichment of the defen-
dant at the plaintiff's expense.
If under case (1), the value of the goods sold
which requires assessment constitutes the action of
quantum valebat,
whereas an action of assessment for
services rendered constitutes a
quantum meruit.
On the
other hand in case (5), there appears to be no general
doctrine of unjust enrichment. The principle that a
plaintiff cannot recover, when he is unjustly enriched
at the expense of the defendant is illustrated by
Read-
ing v. A. G.
(1951) A.C. In that case a sergeant
stationed in Cairo was paid a large sum of money for
helping in the illegal transportation and sale of whisky
and brandy, by riding in uniform on lorries transporting
the liquor and so protecting the cargo from inspection.
When this was discovered, the Crown impounded the
money due in his bank account. As the sergeant had
earned the money in his official position, it was held
that he was bound to hand it over to his employers,
and he consequently could not recover. In case (3),
Constantine, the famous West Indian cricketer was
awarded £ 5 against the Imperial Hotel for refusing to
admit him—see (1944) K.B. Lord Devlin in
Rookes v.
Barnard
—(1964), A.C. laid down that normally exem-
plary damages were an anomaly which should be re-
moved from the law. The only exceptions were (a)
jppressive, arbitrary, unconstitutional action by servants
of the Government; (b) defendant's conduct has been
such as to make a larger profit than the plaintiff would
recover by compensation and (c) exemplary damages
authorised by statute. The extraordinary case of
Re
Diplock—(
1948) Ch. D.—is fully discussed. It will be
recalled that the will was badly drawn, where the
executors were directed to apply the estate for such
institutions with a charitable
or
benevolent object as
they might select; this clause made the will void for
uncertainty. Nevertheless the executors were allowed to
distribute most of the estate of more than £200,000
without a court order amongst a number of charities.
The next of kin only discovered that they were entitled
after a few years and took proceedings. As the mistake
which induced the executors to distribute the estate
was one of law, the next of kin could not recover the
money as having been paid under a mistake; presum-
ably this case is unique.
All the relevant English statutes and case law are
fully treated. Practitioners will benefit immensely from
reading Professor Lawson, who, on account of his
clarity and precision, is an erudite mine of informa-
tion on this involved subject.
Keeton (George YV.)—English Law—The Judicial
Contribution. 23 cm.; 383 pp.; Newton Abbot: David
& Charles; £5.50.
Professor Keeton is one of our most prolific writers;
apart from his well-known works on Equity, he has also
written on the Soccer Football Revolution. In this
volume he has tried to assess the contribution of
English Judges to various aspects of law. In the early
chapters, the learned author deals with legal history,
such as Anglo-Saxon Law, Norman England and the
Mediaeval Judiciary and the Common Law. The mak-
ing of modern Equity extends through the Chancellor-
ships of Lords Nottingham, Hardwicke, Thurlow and
Eldon, yet it must be recalled that all Lord Chan-
cellors were also active politicians, and some of them
made little impact upon the law. Lord Eldon enforced
the doctrine that a precedent in equity was as substan-
tially binding as a precedent in common law. In
BlackwelVs Settlement
—(1953)
Ch. D.—Lord Denning
rebutted the suggestion that the Court of Chancery
had no jurisdiction to sanction acts which are not
authorised by the trust instrument; this has now re-
ceived statutory effect in the English Variation of
Trusts Act, 1958. As recently as in
Baden's Will Trusts
—(1970) 2 W.L.R. the majority of the House of Lords
per Lord Wilberforce, in a case where a fund was
established for the officers and employees of a com-
pany, and where Clause 9 (a) of the Trust Deed stated
that the trustees were to apply the net income of the
fund in making at their absolute discretion grants to
or for the benefit of the officers and employees and
their relatives in such amounts and on such conditions
as they think fit, held—(1) that the trust was valid if
it were construed as a power, and, if it could be said
with certainty that any given individual was or was
not a member of the class of beneficiaries designated
and (2) the terms of clause 9 (a) were mandatory
and constituted a trust. Lord Mansfield was the ablest
judicial law maker to sit in an English Court; he wisely
said "I never give a judicial opinion upon any point,
until I think I am master of every material argument
and authority related to it." In
Macartney v. Garbutt—
(1890) 24 Q.B.D., the plaintiff, a British subject em-
ployed as English secretary in the Chinese Embassy in
London was held to have diplomatic status by virtue
of international law. But the decision cannot be com-
pared to those of Lord Stowell, who, being a master of
both Common Law and Civil Law, combined the
widest knowledge of classical and modern learning. The
principle which Lord Stowell established that a prize
Court is essentially an international Court, was re-
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