59 / 364
any doctor would be prosecuted for it. Ultimately
each doctor should decide what he should do by
reference to his conscience.
In the discussion which followed this problem was
dealt with by several speakers. Most doctors seemed
to suggest that in such cases it was not their duty
to report any crime to the Guards, but, in appropriate
cases, merely to notify the birth.
Junior doctors
examining accident cases in hospital were advised
by their senior colleagues not to submit a report as
to the capability of the patient to drive without the
consent of the patient, even if the Guards try to
obtain such report almost immediately. Mr. Justice
Murnaghan reminded the doctors that in strict law
if a person knows that a felony has been committed
and does not report it to the authorities, he is an
accessory to such a crime.
SYMPOSIUM ON ROAD SAFETY
A Symposium on Road Safety was held at the
Intercontinental Hotel, Dublin 4, from 9th to nth
December, inclusive. Morning sessions each day ran
from 10 a.m. to i p.m. approx., and afternoon
sessions from 2.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. approx. At
each session a principal speaker, generally a foreign
expert on the subject, delivered a paper of about
one hour's duration. Other experts followed with
shorter contributions (approx. half-hour each) and
then
there was opportunity for questions and
general discussions. All the papers to be read by the
principal speakers, were available in print in advance
of the symposium.
Attendance was mainly by invitation but members
of the public also attended.
CASES
OF THE MONTH
Negligence in contract or tort
Architects, whose employment by the plaintiff
included supervision by the architects of the con
struction of drains, were sued by the plaintiff for
breach of duty to exercise reasonable care and skill
in that supervision. The supervision ended more
than six years before the writ was issued.
The
architects admitted that, if the damage (viz., cracking
of drain pipes and settlement of the premises)
occurred at all, it occurred within six years before
the issue of the writ. It was conceded that, if the
cause of action lay in contract only, it arose more
than six years before the writ was issued. On a
preliminary point of law whether the action was
statute-barred under section
z
(i)
(a)
of the Limita
tion Act, 1939.
HELD—The duty of the architects to exercise
reasonable care and skill, where the failure (as here)
was to do the very thing contracted to be done, arose
out of contract alone, and, in cases of professional
relationships, such a duty did not arise also inde
pendently of contract; accordingly, the action was
statute barred.
(Bagot
v.
Stevens Scanlon & Co.,
Law Times,
6th November, 1964, Vol. 235-627.)
Attention of members is also directed to the case
of Clarke & Anor.
v.
Kirby Smith, reported in
the Society's GAZETTE of June, 1964, Vol.
58,
No. 2, at page 16.
Section n (i)
(a)
of the Irish Statutes of Limita
tions is somewhat more circumscribed than section 2
(i)
(a)
1939 of the English Statute but both refer
to actions based on simple contract.
Costs in equity suit
Reserved judgment was delivered by Teevan J. in
the High Court in Dublin on the last day of Trinity
Term in Mangan
v.
McCarthy and Others, a Circuit
Appeal from Co. Kerry. The point in issue was
a simple one, but one on which there seems to have
been no direct authority. The plaintiff claimed and
obtained in the Circuit Court an injunction and £10
damages with costs of action in respect of a private
nuisance and the question was whether the proper
basis for ascertaining the costs payable by the
defendants was to be arrived at by treating plaintiff's
land or the defendants' lands as the subject matter
of the action.
In the Circuit Court Rules, 1954,
Order 58 r. 25, of the Rules of the Circuit Court,
1950, is amended by adding " Provided always that
in equity suits or proceedings, during the conduct
of which any land the subject matter thereof has
not been sold, the value of such land shall be taken
to be fifty times the Poor Law Valuation ".
The action was commenced by an Equity Civil
Bill and the principal relief sought was an injunction
restraining the defendants from so using their lands
as to cause a nuisance to the plaintiff in the owner
ship and occupation of his lands. The defendants'
lands were a rubbish dump, of negligible value: the
plaintiff had a valuable farm adjoining. Offensive
material from the rubbish dump was on occasions
carried to the plaintiff's land by reason of the
absence of proper fencing.
The County Registrar taxed the plaintiff's costs by
reference to fifty times the poor law valuation of the
plaintiff's lands, and the learned President of the
Circuit Court approved this taxation. The defendants
appealed to the High Court.
Teeven J. affirmed the President of the Circuit
Court, holding that, although the acts complained
of originated in the user of the defendants' lands,
the lands the subject matter of the suit were the