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instructed him to proceed as the road was clear.
A motor-cyclist who was approaching collided
with the scout car and was killed.
It was held (C.C.A. : Lord Parker, C.J., Fenton
Atkinson and James J. :
June 15, 1966) that the
appeals should be dismissed since the offence was
an absolute offence. A driver could not escape
liability, even though he was completely blameless,
or delegate any part of his responsibility to a
third person. The only possible defence where
a driver could establish that he had been deprived
of control of a vehicle by reason of some sudden
affliction of his person (e.g. an epileptic fit) or
some defect in the car suddenly manifesting itself
without blame on his part. The expression "all
the circumstances" in the Act of 1960 referred to
circumstances arising outside a vehicle and not
pertaining to the driver himself.
(R. v Ball, R. v Loughlin.
The Times
16, 1966).
Negligence—Vicarious Liability
The respondent was one of a party of boys
returning to Glasgow from a summer camp with
luggage. He was being transported in a lorry be
longing to the appellants, and driven by one of
their servants, when
the lorry was involved in
an accident and the respondent sustained serious
injuries. The Court of Session held that the ap
pellants were vicariously liable for the negligence
of their driver. The appellants appealed on the
ground that the driver was acting outside the
scope of his employment with them, in that at
the time of the accident he was driving along a
road he would not have been had he followed the
instruction they had given him; that instruction
was to transport the boys and their baggage to
Glasgow which meant by implication by the short
est route to Glasgow. The driver had in fact
made a considerable detour at the request of his
passengers and for purposes of theirs.
It was held (H.L. :
Lord Reid, Lord Guest,
Lord Pearce, Lord Upjohn and Lord Pearson;
June 22, 1966)
that the transport of
the boys
and their baggage to their destination was the
dominant purpose of the journey which the ser
vant was, qua servant, required by his employers,
the appellants, to carry out, and it remained the
dominant purpose of the journey even though the
passengers had been transported deviously. Had
the lorry been empty, or had what it carried been
of
little importance, so substantial a deviation
might well have constituted a "frolic of his (the
driver's) own," but the presence of the passengers
meant that the deviation was not undertaken by
the driver for his own purposes alone. In spite
of that deviation, the appellants remained liable
for their driver's negligence.
(A. & W. Hemphill Ltd. v Williams,
The Times,
June 23, 1966).
Contract—Third Party Rights
The appellant, a widow suing personally and
as administratrix of her late husband, appealed
from the decision of the Vice-Chancellor of the
Chancery Court of the County Palatine of Lan
caster that she was not entitled
to enforce a
promise made to her late husband by
the re
spondent, her husband's nephew, and incorporated
in an agreement in writing between them, to the
effect that in part consideration for the handing
over to him of the husband's coal merchant's
business, the nephew would, as from
the hus
band's death, pay to his widow an annuity of £5
a week for life out of the business.
It was held (C.A
. : Lord Denning M.R., Danck-
werts and Salmon
L.JJ.; June 22, 1966) that by
virtue of S. 5
(6)
of the Law of Property Act,
1925 where by a person was entitled "to take an
immediate or other interest in land or other pro
perty .... although he may not be named as a
party to the conveyance or other instrument,"
the widow was entitled to claim the benefit of
the agreement by
the nephew
to pay her an
annuity, even though she was not herself a party
to the agreement. The general rule that "no third
person can sue or be sued on a contract to which
he was not a party" was a rule of procedure going
to the form of remedy but not to the underlying
right. When a contract was made for the benefit
of a third person who had a legitimate interest to
enforce
it,
it could be enforced by
that their
person.
(Beswick v Beswick,
The- Times,
June 23, 1966).
Private prosecutor may bring prosecution for an
indictable offence in the District Court.
1.
The complainant, Jeremiah Crean, issued
a summons in November, 1964 charging the de
fendant Patrick Ennis with fradulent conversion
of the sum of £312-10-0 received for the com
plainant as sole proprietor of Savoy Motors Ltd.,
Rutland Place, Dublin. The said summons was
returnable before District Justice Farrell on 23rd
December 1964.
2. After argument, the District Justice ruled,
that notwithstanding Section 9 (1) of the Criminal
Justice (Admininsttion) Act 1924, which provides
that all criminal charges prosecuted upon indict
ment shall
l)e prosecuted at
the suit of
the
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