The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-12-19 00:00:00

LOCAL CHANCERY SUIT.

MYSORE THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS.
TENNANT v. YOUNG AND ANOTHER.

This cause was heard before the Master of the Rolls,
on Monday last, the facts of which fuhy appear in the
following judgment of his Honour.
Mr. Fletcher, Q.C., and Mr. F. G. Luke (instructed by
Mr. Clulow, solicitor, Rrierley 11111), represented the
plaintiff, Mrs. Mary Tennant, widow of the late Mr.
Thomas Tennant, spirit merchant, Stourbridge ; and Mr.
Southgate, Q.C., and Mr. Leonard Field (instructed by
Messrs. Rogers and Jordan, and Mr. Phillips Price, Stour.
bridge), appeared for the defendants, William Young, of
Stourbridge, and Edward Nash, of Btewponey Hotel,
near Illteurbridge.

In
,olrwt. ihis otz
trouble
bwj nvmt the e
rrs.o,ka
rut
rtylet ,
g; !Le t:: Rolls
I am
ssh., said
yi
c sorry!4:
make somebody else pay the costs of this unnecess •rs!
and vexatious suit; but, of course, that is quite out of
my power. The bill is filed by a tenant for life, a wide 4,
asking • That an account may be taken of the losses of
! interest and income which the plaintiff has from time to
time sustained by reason ef the neglect of the defend-
s". f defend-
ants
properly
that newly invest
trustees the
mwahyolbee of
ppt hoei said
pt the defendants,n t ad
es
hn
ed t the
loss of
i defendants
it
ashouldriltuppsilat:yef eutthneoide:
masts of this suit.' is the bailll...,Nofoiltohme
eti,rbst.ecao.n:
way ; or, rather, it was an allege
there was no loss. There was • power to iavest upon
Government, or real securities. The plaintiff, of course,
did not wish the money to go into Consols. Heriocome
was very small, and she wished the trustees to obtain
mortgegea at five per cent if they could. Well, they did.
! Then, the £5OO mortgage was paid off in Atril, 1869, and
isis the investment of this fund which forma the subject
of the first complaint in suit. Now this £5OO, when it
was paid off, was placed upon deposit with the Birming-
and Midland Bashing Company, at Stourbridge, at 25 per
cent. interest until a new mortgage could be found, and
the complaint is that a new mortgage not having been
found until the 53,2 of March, 1870, they only got 21 per
cent, for ten months or thereabouts, instead of 31, or 35,
which they wonld have had it it had been invested in
consols. The difference is something like 25a or 264,
and some solicitor in the country, whose name I had
rather not mention, because Lice! such judjcial indigna-
tion at his conduct, has allowed this unfortunate Weilelll
to file a Bill in Chancery for the purpose of recovering I
that '26s. But it does not stop there. This appears by
the defendant's affidavit We, the said William Young !
and Edward Nash, say that it was at the particular request !
of the p:aintiff that we kept the trust money at the imuk
MIDI the same could be invested on good mortgage secu-
rity paying interest at £5 per cent.,' so that the very
thing, if it were a breach of trust, which I will cons bier
in a moment, Was done at the particular reqeest of the
plaintiff; which would, of course, put an end to her suit
for 265. But it doea not stop there. I am of opinion
that there was no breach of trust at all. The trustees,
when this small mortgage of £5OO was paid oft', properly,
put the money in deposit at a good bank at interest, and
to a private account. What better could they do with it?
They are going to tind another mortgage, and Mr. Jordan,
who is one of the solicitors for the trustees, says, • that ,
in this neighbourhood inch securities are very scarce, and
that for several years mist moueys belonging to clients of
my said firm have been, sad still are waiting in vestmeat
for want of good mortgage securities paying £5 per cent.'
Well, I can imagine Viet a security for .£5OO, on a good
freehold investment at five ter cent, is very scarce in
deed, aid difficult to obtain, and defendants further say
in their answer they were from time to time endeavour.
ing to obtain oue, and so was the plaintiff Although, I
do not mean to say that ten months is not too long •
time if nothing is done, yet, daring that time if you are
endeavouring to obtain a mortgage it is no breach of
trust because you must have e:ressonable time, and the
reasonableness of time must depend on the amount to be
lent, and the nature of the security. Ido not think it an
unreasonable time, and if the abstract question had to
be decided, which it has not in this unit, I should decide
that there was nothing unreasonable in it. That is the
great point that is made by the bill, for which an account
is prayed. Now we cane to the other complaint. There •
is an attempt to remove the trustees. The first objection ,
taken by the answer, which is not met at all, is that the
remaindermen are uot parties to the suit. There is no •
right laeie to remove the trustees. In a gross easel I
should not hesitate in the absence of the rernaindermem
But in this case the remaindermen come forward and say !
they wish Vie trustees to remain. Why do they want to !
remove the trustees? It is void they have been guilty of !
two breaches of trust. The first breech of trust ie this. I
When all the money was lent except £9O which remained
at the bank, the trustees looked about to see if they !
could find a mortgage fra• the £BO, and Edward Tooby,'
I am reading from the affidavit of defendant Young, 'ap-
plied to me to adviuice £9O to pay off is mortgage of a
house and premises at Gig Mill, Stourbridge, bite belong-
ing to Joseph Wright, the original mottgegor, and the
equity of redemption ill Which property was then vested,
as I believe, in his widow, Mrs. Wright, and which mort-
gage was then held by George Thomas of Bagley, as
mortgagee. I ieformed the plaintiff •1 the application"
(this is the man who does nothing) 'and she and I went
to to ik at the property, which proved to be ample secu-
rity:: Thin is to get the £9O out, if they could, at tire
per cent. which was all they had in the bank. " I then
informededefendent, Edward Nash, of it, and with his
and the plantes sanction I agreed to lend the amount, .
and obtained from the said Edward Nash an authority to ,
withdraw the balance of principal money then remaining ,
at the bank, viz,. £9O Accor linely, on the 30:h day of :
September, 1070, I withdrew the balance of £9O sod inte-
rest from the bank, and attended at the office of Mr.
Bache, solicitor, Stourbridge (who was acting as solicitor
to Mr. Thomas, and who prepared the deed of transfer)
to take up the deeds, but on my arrival there I found that
the sum required was only £B5, which I paid over to the
said Mr. Thomas, and I took away the deede with a
proper transfer of the said mortgage to the said Edward
Nash and myself. The plaintiff on the same day informed
me that she did not wish the remaining £5 to 'be deposi.
ted at the bank, aud urged me to lend it to the said Ed.
ward looby, who had offered to pay her £5 per cent.
interest for interest for it, and the plaintiff informed me
that the property in questioa would belong to Tooby on
the death of Mrs. Wright, the mother of the original
mortgagor, and on the earnest entreaty of the plaiutitf
I consented to the loan for which the said E lward Tuohy
gave his promissory note, payable on deramd." This
loan of £5, because it was lent on a promissory note, is
one of the breaches of trust complained of. Having
been done upon the earnest entreaty of the plaintiff,
whatever the remaindermen might do, she could do no-
thing, and has no right to file a bill to remove the true.
tees on account of this reach of trust. The third corn.
plaint on which they are sought to be removed is this. It
seems they could not find a mortage for the £5OO. The
plaintitl tried to fool a mortgege. What she did is best
told in the affidavit of Mr. Waterman. Mr. Waterman
was the Managing Clerk to the plaintiff's own solicitors,
Messrs. Bernard and King. Very naturally her own soli•
citors are applied to, to find a mortgage, but, unfortn.
nately she did not tell Mr. Waterman the exact facts.
Instead of telling Lim it was trust money, of which elle
was tenant for life, she told him it was her own money
MT. Waterman says this in his affidavit. the year
1870, and for some time previously thereto, the plaintiff
was a client of the said Messrs. Bernard and King, and
I, as such Managing Clerk as aforesaid, had the conduct
of (her bueinese. She repeatedly asked me to
procure a security for some money she wished to invest,
and at that time such securities were scarce '(he agrees
with Mr. Jordan in that respect) 'and prior to the month
of March, 1850,1 informed her that a client of the said
Messrs. Bernard and Kingo,
eideaedshitrooeud:Mnadnbihrper
r•maevem.
nl£i 2,yos.Jaatan ti
roe,p r caenndt on ne
thereupon
ea.,'
pc tiorni tayg
ion
rhe
which
e accordinglymt tot
thereof
rr ee
op
did
a r
bjei,
yneoitstalfh:
trerhii
eltenearh
rHe:eopcar
puiteadyeerknce:
usit,
ierhiaeyriim.
ret :no:oil:tug:dyed;
setoiihei:bnet
;tut
4:lo22itafine3t3nhde 23rd
great
day of Msreh for completing the business. It was in
ce
a.
nhci;e:rnmegaeb:lesware
hec:out
wieot
ity:hfhte that
ash
clients
for liepgni gave
tyir,oeftMruitstrecehoplaaitnti.iffy
oatittecnedteod with the defendant' (that
so
defendants, much to my surprise, informed use that the
money was trust money, and did not belong to the plain-
tiff, and I thereupon explained to the plaintiff; and de-
fendants that the deeds should have been made out to the
defendants as mortgages nod that the matter ought to be
made right by their taking a transfer of the mortgage
from the plaintiff, and I informed all parties that as it
was the f salt of the plaintiff, she ought to pay the costs.
The plaintiff would not agree to pay the costs nor did the
defendants offer to pay it, but the defendant ultimately
consented to pay over the money OD having the custody of
the deeds, and let the question of the transfer stand over
and the defendant accordingly paid over the £2OO to me
on behalf of the maid Mrs. Hicks, and I immediately in-
formed Mrs Hicks that the money belonged to the its.
fendants as trustees of Mrs. Teunants settlement.' Now
no noulit technically it was wrong to allow the mortgage
to remain in the name of the plaintiff; it ought to hove
been transfered, but it Was in order to nave her the costs
which Lad been occasioned by her own mistake. Ido
not say that it was an intentional concealment. Ido not
think that. I think it W9B carelessness. but it was:entirely
her own fault; and the trustees consented to let the
transfer stand over and not put her to coets, which has
been avoided, because the mortgage has since been paid
off. Upon that ground she seeks to remove these gentle.
men from beisg trustees. Assurance could so further
go. I think it is about as gram, a case of absurd tissue
of comp'aints as I Lave ever seen. I think the Bill
wholly fails, and that the proper decree to be made,
which I much lament for the lady's sake, is that the Bill
he dismissed with costs."