The Gazette 1910-11

151

NOVEMBER, 1910]

The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.

' 2. Clause (9) of Rule 55 of the Labourers (Ireland) Order, 1906, as amended by the Labourers (Ireland) Order, 1909, is hereby revoked, and the following Clauses (9) and (10) shall be inserted as so numbered in the said Rule, and shall henceforth be read and constructed as part of the said Rule :— (9) Where land is taken from an occupier who is neither owner or lessee thereof, the fee payable by the Council for all expenses incurred in respect of the employment of a Solicitor by him for the purpose of deducing title to his occupation interest shall be the sum of ten shillings and sixpence. (10) In the construction and for the purposes of this Rule, the expressions " owner " or " lessee " shall not extend to or include— (a) Any tenant of a holding subject to a judicial rent fixed or agreed to under the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, and the Acts amending the same ; or (b) Any tenant holding under a tenancy from year to year or any lesser tenancy; or (c) Any such tenant as is hereinbefore in this clause mentioned who has entered into an agreement for the purchase of his holding under the Land Purchase Acts, but in whom such holding is not yet vested under the said Acts. Given under Our Seal of Office this Sixth day of October, in the Year of our Lord, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ten. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL. H. A. ROBINSON. Recent Decisions affecting Solicitors. (Notes of decisions, whether in reported or unreported cases, of interest to Solicitors, are invited from Members.) COUNTY COURT. (Before His HONOR JUDGE COOKE, K.G.) Patrick Benar and H. T. Gallagher v. The Stranorlar District Council. October 26, 1910.— Labourers (Ireland) Acts and Orders—Cost of furnishing Title to District Council—Labourers (Ireland) Order, 1910, not retrospective. AT Lifford County Court, Patrick Benar and H. T. Gallagher, Solicitor, Strabane, were [L.S.]

plaintiffs in a process brought against the Stranorlar Rural District Council for £2 2s. costs in one of several cases for title furnished under the Labourers Act. The claim was made under the Labourers (Ireland) Order, 1909, and the defence set up by Mr. James Boyle, solicitor for the District Council, was that the claim did not come within the scope of the Act, the order under which it was made having been since partially repealed by the Local Government Board. The new Order of 1910 was retro spective, Mr. Boyle argued, and, therefore, Mr. Gallagher was only entitled to 10s. 6d. for each of the several cases. Judge Cooke said this matter had been before him in a previous action. At that time there was a Local Government Board Order, dated July, 1909, in force, which in effect stated that the Solicitor for the owner or lessee or person, whose land had been taken could take or claim without any taxation the sum of £2 2s. in each case; but in cases of persons other than the owner or lessee, .a smaller fee was fixed, namely, 10s. 6d. The question then agitated was whether the tenant from year to year was to be considered a lessee, within the meaning of that Order, or whether he was to be con sidered simply an occupier other than the owner or lessee. At that time he went very fully into the code, and after pointing to the kindred Acts upon which this code depended, stated that, so far as he could gather from the code as it was drafted, the distinction was between tenant from year to year and owner, or what was described as lessee. This came before the Lord Chief Baron on appeal, and he held that a tenant from year to year, who had a fair rent fixed, was a lessee, because there was a contract on the Court records, which was the highest form of contract, making him tenant by written order of the Court, and that consequently a tenant holding in that way was a lessee, the definition of lessee being according to Deasy's Act, a person who held under written contract. Therefore, his decision was reversed by the Lord Chief Baron. He (Judge Cooke) remembered that in the course of his remarks on the case, he said that really the cases were not of much importance, inasmuch as the Local Government Board, if they chose, could publish a new Order any day, and so