263 / 266
find themselves in complete agreement with the
Supreme Court, but they would add that had
they felt any hesitation in the matter they would
require a very strong case before they substituted
their own opinion of what is professional mis
conduct in the Federation for the conclusion
reached by the Disciplinary Committee and the
Supreme Court. As Darling, L ., said in relation
to England in
In re A Solicitor, Ex parte Eaw Society
(1912) 1 K .B . 302 : “ The Law Society are very
good judges o f what is professional misconduct
as a solicitor, just as the General Medical Council
are very good judges o f what is misconduct as a
medical man.” (Rajasooria
v.
Disciplinary Committee
(
1955
)
1
W.L.R.
405
).
Irish Company not entitled to recover rent in England
without a licence in mortmain.—Eormer identical decision
not given p e r incuriam.—Applies also to registered land.
In Morelle
v.
Waterworth (1954) 2 All E .R . 673,
the Court o f Appeal (Singleton, Denning and
Morris, L. JJ.) , decided, in one day, that a company
registered in Eire, neither incorporated nor regis
tered under the Companies Acts and having no
place of business in this country, were not entitled
to recover rent on premises the residue of a lease
o f which had been assigned to them, since, the
company not having obtained a licence in mortmain,
section 1 o f the Mortmain and Charitable Uses
Act, 1888, applied.
Rodnall Ltd.
v.
Ludbrook, a similar case but in
which the lease had been registered, was decided
in the same sense at the same time on counsel’s
concession that it was indistinguishable.
The present case was likewise similar to Morelle
v.
Waterworth, save that the company was registered
in H.M. Land Registry as the proprietor o f a pos
sessory title to the leasehold interest in land in
question. The registration was effected pursuant
to a transfer by the previous registered proprietor
o f that interest. The transfer was not, however,
made in the prescribed statutory form.
It was contended that the first Morelle case was
decided
p er incuriam
since the subject-matter was
o f a specialised and highly technical character
which infrequently came before the Courts ; the
arguments were brief, counsel for the company
having only been instructed the previous afternoon ;
there was consequently an absence o f sufficient
emphasis on the feudal origin o f mortmain or the
fact that the Act o f 1888 was a consolidating statute ;
and the Crown was not represented.
Held by the Court o f Appeal (Evershed, M. R.,
Denning, Jenkins, Morris and Romer, L. J J . ) ;
(1) That the decision in Morelle
v.
Waterworth
was not given
p er incuriam.
The general rule was
that a decision should be held to have been given
8 5
p er incuriam
only where it was given in ignorance
or forgetfulness o f some inconsistent statutory
provision or o f some authority binding on the court,
so that in such cases some parts o f the decision or
some step in the reasoning on which it was based
was on that account demonstrably wrong. That
was not so in Morelle
v.
Waterworth, and while
the general rule was not necessarily exhaustive,
cases not within it, which could properly be held
to have been decided
p er incuriam,
must be o f the
rarest occurrence. A decision was not to be treated
as having been given
p er incuriam
because o f a
deficiency o f parties, or because it might be made
to appear that on an earlier occasion the court
had not had the benefit of the best argument.
(2) That Morelle
v.
Waterworth was not dis
tinguishable on the ground that that case did not
concern registered land. Nothing in section 23 of
the Land Registration Act, 1925, ousted the saving
o f the Crown’s right to forfeiture preserved by
section 80, and by virtue o f that provision the
forfeiture took immediate and automatic effect on
the registration o f the transfer, just as it would
have done on the execution and delivery o f an
assignment o f unregistered leaseholds. Forfeiture
was not suspended pending an order for rectification
o f the register or contingent on such an order being
obtained. But it would have made no effective
difference if the forfeiture had occurred at any
step o f the transaction earlier than the actual com
pletion of the sale by registration o f the plaintiff
company as proprietor. (Morelle
v.
Wakeling and
another (1955) 2 W.L.R. 672).
BAR ASSOCIATIONS.
County Meath Sessional Bar Association.
The following are the Officers and Committee
for the year 1955 :—-
President
:—Mr. Patrick Noonan, Solicitor, Athboy ;
Hon. Secretary and Treasurer:
—Mr. Louis J. Noonan,
Solicitor, Navan ;
Committee :
—Messrs. Alan
Donnelly, Solicitor, N avan ;
Nathaniel Lacy,
Solicitor, K e lls; Anthony J. Malone, Solicitor,
Trim ; John Noonan, Solicitor, Athboy ; William
O. Armstrong, Solicitor, K e lls;
Barry Steen,
Solicitor, Navan.
Dublin Solicitors’ Bar Association.
A
deputation
from the Association was recently
received by the Secretary o f the Department of
Justice, when the deputation made representations
concerning certain features of the working o f the
Registry o f Deeds Office, and o f the Probate Office,
and o f the unsatisfactory position concerning hire