The Gazette 1964/67

defendants in May 1959, and was unable to resume

duty until January 1960. The Attorney-General and

the Minister for Defence, as plaintiffs, brought a

Civil Bill in the Circuit Court claiming on behalf of

the people of Ireland £585 for loss of services of

this sergeant, while he was incapacitated.

The

Circuit Judge awarded the full amount claimed, and

the defendant appealed to the High Court.

The

appeal came before Henchy J. who submitted a

case stated to the Supreme Court. The unanimous

judgment of the Supreme Court was delivered by

Kingsmill-Moore J. who stated inter alia :—" The

first question to be considered was whether the

Supreme Court was to accept and lay down the

principle that it was to be bound irrevocably by an

earlier decision. . . . There can be no legal obligation

on this Court to accept ' Stare Decisis' as a rule

binding upon it just because the House of Lords

accepted it as a binding rule. .

. However desirable

certainty, stability and predictability of law may be,

they cannot in my view justify a Court of ultimate

resort in giving a judgment which they are con

vinced for compelling reasons is erroneous.

In my

opinion, the rigid rule of ' Stare Decisis ' must in

a Court of ultimate resort give place to a more

elastic

formula."

(All

former

Irish, English,

Australian and Canadian cases on loss of services

were then fully considered in detail.)

" This mass

of high authority, though not binding, to my mind

is persuasive to the point of conclusiveness that

public servants, be they in the armed forces, the

police or the civil service, do not fall within the

class of servants in respect of whom the action

per quod servitium amisit lies. On the other hand,

the field of indirect damage is so wide, so vague,

and so disputable, that I feel that any change in the

present law is a matter for the Legislature and not

for the Courts. The Civil Bill therefore discloses

no cause of action, and the questions submitted by

Henchy J. do not arise, because no sustainable

claim for damages has been pleaded."

(Attorney-General and Minister for Defence

Ryan's Car Hire Limited—Unreported judgment of

the Supreme Court, nth December, 1964.)

Solicitors' authority to institute proceedings

In 1951 the Minister for Education of the land

of Thuringia purported to appoint Dr. S. to the

board of management of an optical works.

document called a power of attorney was signed on

behalf of the Ministry of Education whereby the

management of Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung and Weimar

conferred authority on Dr. S. as agent to represent

Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung in law suits. The present passing

off action for an injunction to restrain the defendants

from using the word " Zeiss" and from selling

optical glass instruments under that name unless

the goods were those of the plaintiffs, was begun by

writ issued on zoth October, 1955 in the name of

Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung as plaintiffs. On instructions by

Dr. S. on behalf of the foundation, the defendants

applied to stay all further proceedings on the ground

that the action was brought without the plaintiffs'

authority. It was accepted by both sides in the first

instance that East German laws were valid either as

those of the German Democratic Republic or of the

Soviet Government, it being immaterial which gave

them validity. Subsequently Her Majesty's Secretary

of State certified

that the German Democratic

Republican Government were not recognised by the

Government of the United Kingdom. On appeal:—

held (i) that Dr. S. was not authorised by the power

of attorney of 20th June, 1951 to cause proceedings

to be instituted, because that instrument was really

an appointment to act in several spheres, which

merely defined the scope of these powers but did

not sanction their use except in a properly authorised

instance; nor had he authority in 1955, either as

a member or mandatory of the Board of Management

of the Optical Works, to authorise the action to be

instituted,

(ii) In the circumstances the order as

to costs, which was discretionary, would be that

there should be no costs below, but that the

defendants of the present appeal should be paid by

the plaintiff's solicitors on a common fund basis.

Appeal allowed on a matter not raised before the

Court below (Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung

Rainer and

Keeler Ltd. and Ors. (No. 2). (1965) i All E.R. 300.

"The laws delays"

Mr. Justice Roskil at the sitting of the High Court

—Queen's Bench Division on—February i5th, 1965,

stated that in view of the length of his written

judgment—203 pages of single spaced typewritten

foolscap—he proposed to state at once the con

clusions which he had reached. He would cause

much extra expense to the parties and occupy much

public time were he to read his written judgment at

length. In the circumstances of the case he did not

propose to do that. A copy had been handed to the

shorthand writer and copies were available for the

parties.

Copies were then handed to the parties

" on the usual terms ".

If reporters and others

concerned wished to have copies, his Lordship

stated that he hoped that it would be possible for the

necessary arrangements to be made with the help of

the parties and their solicitors, for his part his

Lordship would gladly do what he could to assist.

At the conclusion of his written judgment his

Lordship stated that there were two matters he

wished to mention. First that it was to be observed

that the case, by far the longest in the High Court in