bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Reversionary Damage to Chattels
Authors: Tettenborn Andrew
Published: January 2009

To the annoyance of students and academics alike, the law of tort contains a number of awkward heads of liability which defy classification except under “Miscellaneous” or some similar rubric. This article explores one such: the action on the case for damage to the plaintiffs reversionary interest in a chattel. This oddly obscure head, of liability does not even have a generally-accepted name (in this article it is christened, for brevity, “reversionary damage”). It is traditionally dismissed by the text-books in a paragraph or two; the leading cases on it are rarely cited; and yet in practice it is a highly important aspect of the law of personal property without which the owner's protection would be seriously incomplete.
Fuller's Analysis of Polycentric Disputes and the Limits of Adjudication
Authors: Allison J.W.F.
Published: January 2009

Fuller made a leading contribution to the understanding of the adversary system and the process of adjudication. He did not officially publish his paper, “The Forms and Limits of Adjudication”, but distributed it widely and discussed it in his correspondence with prominent academics. His analysis of the limits of adjudication has been influential in both England and North America.
Disclosure of Journalists' Sources, Civil Disobedience and the Rule of Law
Authors: Allan T.R.S.
Published: January 2009

In what circumstances, and under what conditions, should a journalist be obliged by law to divulge the identity of the source of information contained in a published article—when anonymity may have been promised the source, or receipt of information in the future may be thought to depend on the preservation of anonymity now? Section 10 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 provides a framework for determining an answer to that controversial question, as it arises in particular cases before the courts:
Remedies for Breach of the Contract of Employment
Authors: Ewing K. D.
Published: January 2009

Wallie Nangle was an executive officer in the Lord Chancellor's Department. In November 1989, it was alleged that he had sexually harassed a female colleague. Following an investigation in which the complaint was upheld, Mr. Nangle was transferred to another department with a loss of increments for 12 months. This decision was upheld after an appeal to the permanent secretary in the department, though the loss of increments was reduced from 12 to three months. Alleging that these decisions had been taken in breach of the rules of natural justice and with procedural impropriety Nangle sought judicial review. But the application failed, with the Divisional Court holding that despite his status as a civil servant, the plaintiff was engaged under a contract of service and that he should seek relief in contract rather than public law to remedy any loss which he had suffered.1 The question which arose in this case was precisely what remedies could Nangle secure in private law? He might recover damages for any loss of increments if the employer had in fact failed to comply with the terms of the disciplinary code. But it is difficult to see what contractual remedy would have been available at the time against the Crown to restrain a disciplinary transfer on the ground that the disciplinary proceedings were conducted in breach of the rules of natural justice, that is to say in breach of rules applying more usually in public law which the courts have shown little desire to apply in the context of employment.
The Work of the Commercial Courts.
Authors: Scrutton T. E.
Published: January 2009

During the last Long Vacation—which I am afraid, by the way, will be the last long vacation—I Was just about starting out to indulge in a pastime which a don of the rival, but much inferior, university has described as “putting little balls into little holes with instruments singularly unadapted for the purpose” when a letter was put into my hand with an American stamp and a United States postmark. I opened it hastily and glanced at it, and gathered the impression that some unknown society in the United States was inviting me to proceed there in the month of November to deliver an address on some legal subject. I was flattered and puzzled. I threw the letter on the table and went out to indulge in the aforesaid pastime. It was not till I got home and read the letter carefully that I discovered what it was all about. I gathered that your Downing Professor, who prefers to spend his holiday in a dry climate—a bone-dry climate—was conveying to me the request of the University Law Society that I should come back to my old university and my old college and speak to the law students, and I was very much flattered and grateful. I felt a little, however, like the Prodigal Son, for I thought that for the Cambridge Law Society and the Law School of Cambridge to invite a man who had paid little attention to them while he was up, to come and address them, was heaping coals of fire upon his head.
Execrabilis in the Common Pleas: Further Studies
Authors: Plucknett T. F. T.
Published: January 2009

Under the above title Professor Maitland gave a characteristic study of the relations of the Common Law Courts to the Canon Law in the reign of Edward the Third. His object was to trace the history of an attempt by the temporal authority to “enforce” (for its own ends) the provisions of the papal Extravagant “Execrabilis” by securing its recognition in the Court of Common Pleas and excluding the spiritual Courts from their claim to the sole cognizance of the matters covered by the Bull. To his treatment of the subject it may be objected, with all due deference, that the Bull Execrabilis, interesting as it is, cannot be regarded as an altogether new factor in English law calling into operation an entirely new set of phenomena that can be isolated and studied alone; on the contrary, when the Bull made its first appearance in the English Courts of Common Law it became immediately involved in a fairly old dispute between the spiritual and temporal jurisdictions. This aspect of the subject received no consideration in Maitland's essay, with the result that his treatment of the matter is incomplete and in one important particular incorrect.
Bacon
Authors: Holdsworth W. S.
Published: January 2009

Of all Bacon's claims to greatness, his claims as a lawyer are the least of all known. It is strange that this should be so. The law was his profession. Through the law he gained position and honour—Solicitor and Attorney-General and Lord Chancellor. Moreover, I think that those who study his philosophy should remember that Bacon was trained as a student and practitioner in a system of case law, which taught him to construct the rules and principles of law from concrete cases. It is at least arguable that this had some influence on his inductive system of experimental philosophy. Yet there is no doubt that it is as lawyer that Bacon is least known. I think that for this three reasons can be assigned. In the first place, some of his appearances as a lawyer were the least creditable parts of his career. I do not propose to defend his conduct as Lord Chancellor—he himself threw up the defence. But I think that there is more to be said in extenuation of his offence than some of his more severe critics allow—that at any rate was the opinion of Mr. Spedding, to whose great work on Bacon the Master of Trinity has alluded. In the second place, to appreciate Bacon's greatness as a lawyer we must have a considerable knowledge of sixteenth century law, of sixteenth century legal literature, and of sixteenth century lawyers. That is not very common; but it is getting more common; and as a result of this I think it is clear that among sixteenth century lawyers Bacon is pre-eminent. His only rival is Coke. As a lawyer I think that he was Coke's equal, and as a juridical thinker infinitely his superior. Thirdly, the most decisive reason why Bacon's eminence as a lawyer has been so inadequately recognised is the fact that he took the losing side in the politics of the seventeenth century, and the fact that the influence of seventeenth century politics has been immense and long lived.
Droit Administratif
Authors: Mestre Achille
Published: January 2009

A French jurist who seeks to explain to the English public the principles governing administrative law as they are understood in France, is beset at the same moment by conflicting feelings of uneasiness and confidence. He recollects at the outset that, according to a classical doctrine which has been true for a considerable time and which is expressed in Dicey's works in the most brilliant formula, England does not possess to any extent in its legal organization a system of ideas which could have any claim to be compared to the French droit administratif or indeed could be regarded as parallel to it with any exactness. Is it not therefore presumptuous for a Frenchman to attempt to explain to English lawyers the leading characteristics of an institution which might certainly appear to them unusual, if not grotesque? And yet when a traveller has stayed a short time in Great Britain, has talked with the recognized authorities of that country, has asked questions, has made notes, has dipped into the recent works on English law, has glanced with an unprejudiced eye at the whole trend of legal institutions at the present day, he cannot help being struck by a certain lack of harmony between the official doctrine, which for such a long time has had good reason to say that there is no administrative law in England, and the judicial practice which, owing to the creation of new jurisdictions, to the introduction of new forms of procedure, and to the needs originating in ihe obvious inadequacy of inherited views, seems to pave the way for the introduction into England of a droit administratif and the recognition of principles derogatory to the common law—principles which are adapted to playing in English law the part which droit administratif played in the French common law chiring the nineteenth century, and still plays.
A Year and a Day in Homicide
Authors: Yale D. E. C.
Published: January 2009

On 14 August 1988 the death occurred of Miss Pamela Banyard of Laxenheath. She had been the victim eighteen months previously of a savage and brutal attack for which her assailant was sent to prison for ten years on conviction of attempted murder and robbery. Why was he not convicted of murder? The answer in the words of the Crown Prosecutor: “We cannot prosecute for murder as she died more than a year and a day after the attack.”
Gossip about Legal History: Unpublished Letters of Maitland and Ames
Authors: Hazeltine H. D.
Published: January 2009

When, during a recent visit at Harvard University, I called upon my friend Mrs. James Barr Ames, in her Cambridge home, she most generously gave me the originals of some letters which had been written to her husband by Mait-land, Brunner, and other legal scholars. On examining the letters, I found that the bundle contained six letters written to Ames by Maitland, and also the original of one long letter which Ames had written to Maitland, a letter which for some reason, possibly the refreshing of memory, appears to have been returned to the writer.
Evasion of Law and Mandatory Rules in Private International Law
Authors: Fawcett J. J.
Published: January 2009

It has often been asserted that English private international law has no doctrine of evasion of the law. It is true that English law has never developed a general doctrine, like the French one of fraude a la hi, to deal with cases of evasion. Nonetheless, evasion of the law has been recognised as a problem in at least some areas of private international law, and an increasing number of specific anti-evasion measures have been introduced in response to this. The English approach towards evasion is a pragmatic one rather than being based on any broad underlying theory. In particular, the fundamental questions have not been addressed of what is wrong with evasion of the law and how it can be dealt with most effectively. The purpose of this article is to examine the present law on evasion, determine what is wrong with evasion of the law and put forward proposals for a principled approach to deal with the problem.
A Synthesis of the Mode of Termination of Contracts of Employment
Authors: McMullen John
Published: January 2009

The contract of employment is still the basic structure in individual employment law. There is, however, much literature the argument of which is that the contract of employment is in many ways an unsuitable legal framework to govern individual workplace relations. In particular, the resolution of individual employment disputes would not, one might realistically imagine, be best achieved by the application of rigid contractual principles derived frequently from the resolution of commercial and other unrelated problems. In this vein it has been stated by Winn L.J. that:
Public Nuisance—A Critical Examination
Authors: Spencer J. R.
Published: January 2009

Why is making obscene telephone calls like laying manure in the street? Answer: in the same way as importing Irish cattle is like building a thatched house in the borough of Blandford Forum; and as digging up the wall of a church is like helping a homicidal maniac to escape from Broadmoor; and as operating a joint-stock company without a royal charter is like being a common cold; and as keeping a tiger in a pen adjoining the highway is like depositing a mutilated corpse on a doorstep; and as selling unsound meat is like embezzling public funds; and as garaging a lorry in the street is like an inn-keeper refusing to feed a traveller; and as keeping treasure-trove is like subdividing houses which so “become hurtful to the place by overpestering it with poor.” All are, or at some time have been said to be, a common (alias public) nuisance. The definition of this offence, according toArchbold's Criminal Pleading and Practice, is as follows: “Every person is guilty of an offence at common law, known as public nuisance, who does an act not warranted by law, or omits to discharge a legal duty, if the effect of the act or omission is to endanger the life, health, property, morals, or comfort of the public, or to obstruct the public in the exercise or enjoyment of rights common to all Her Majesty's subjects.” The person who commits a public nuisance incurs liability to life imprisonment and unlimited fines. He can be made vicariously liable for the offence if it is committed by his servants. He can be ordered to stop it by an injunction, and made to pay damages in tort if it causes anyone loss. With such a broad concept in existence, backed with such broad remedies, what need have we of any other criminal offence?—or torts?—or remedies in administrative law?
Affirmative Action in the Law of Tort: The Case of the Duty to Warn
Authors: Logie James G.
Published: January 2009

One of the principal features in the development of private law in recent years has been the dramatic increase in the variety of circumstances in which courts are willing to hold that one party owes a duty of care in tort to another. The view that the categories of relationship which attract a duty of care at common law are immutably fixed by precedent and that any decision to extend them must be left to the legislature, expressed by one Law Lord as recently as 1970, now seems somewhat quaint and it is generally accepted that courts can, in appropriate cases, extend the scope of liability for negligence to embrace new types of relationships, conduct and harm. As the boundaries of liability have been rolled back, old immunities have been removed and duties of care (albeit sometimes restricted) have been established in areas previously considered to be beyond the scope of the law of tort. But there are still areas of confusion and difficulty, perhaps the most prominent of which in recent years have been the extent of liability for economic loss and for nervous shock. Another area of doubt, however, is the extent of liability for omissions. While it has not attracted as much attention as economic loss or nervous shock, the distinction between acts and omissions still exercises a powerful influence on judicial decision making on the question of tortious liability. This article considers the question of liability for one such omission, namely liability for a failure to warn someone of imminent danger. Before doing so, however, it is necessary to clarify exactly what is meant by an “omission.”
Freedom of Association and the Closed Shop: the European Perspective
Authors: von Prondzynski Ferdinand
Published: January 2009

On 13 August 1981 the European Court of Human Rights decided, by a majority of eighteen to three, that the dismissal by British Rail of three of their employees, Messrs Young, James, and Webster, for their refusal to join a union was a violation of their rights under the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Although a variety of different arguments concerning the compatibility of their dismissal with the Convention's provisions had been presented to the court, the eventual decision was based entirely on Article 11 which protects, inter alia, the “right to … freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions.”
Economic Torts and Labour Law: Old Principles and New Liabilities
Authors: Elias Patrick , Ewing Keith
Published: January 2009

What forms of economic coercion should the law permit in the conflict between labour and capital? This is a fundamental question to ask in any developed economy. It is also hotly disputed, particularly in Britain where, in the last ten years especially, successive governments have attempted to redefine the legality of strike action to reflect their own views of what society should tolerate. As every student of labour law knows, the liberty to strike in Britain has been created by Parliament giving unions and workers a series of immunities from judge-made liabilities, and the scope of that liberty can be altered by expanding or restricting the immunities accordingly. This perhaps suggests a simple control mechanism for adjusting at will the boundary between lawful and unlawful industrial action. But the description is deceptively simple and any such conception is grossly misleading.
Convictions and Fair Labelling
Authors: Williams Glanville
Published: January 2009

In a notable contribution to the memorial volume to Sir Rupert Cross Dr. Andrew Ashworth has coined the phrase “representative labelling” as a desideratum in criminal cases. “The label applied to an offence ought fairly to represent the offender's wrongdoing.” I understand this to mean not merely that the name of the abstract offence but the particulars stated in the conviction should convey the degree of the offender's moral guilt, or at least should not be positively misleading as to that guilt, the chief reason being that on a later occasion the conviction may be on the back of the indictment before the judge or be read out in court and thus affect the future sentence. It is true that if the offender receives a lenient sentence this may be an indication to the later court that the particular offence was not as serious as the words of the conviction may suggest; but fair labelling would help to minimise the possibility of misunderstanding. In any case, a man may feel a sense of injustice if the terms of the conviction do not represent his real guilt.
Options: as Safe as Houses?
Authors: Tromans Stephen
Published: January 2009

Options over land have formed part of the law of real property for a long time. Their oldest uses are probably in the context of wills, allowing stated persons to purchase part of the testators” property, and in the law of landlord and tenant, giving the tenant the right to call for a renewal of the term or in some cases to purchase the freehold. Options are still used for both of these purposes, although statutory developments in the law of landlord and tenant have rendered the option to renew of less significance than was once the case. In addition, other uses have been found for options by landowners and conveyancers.
The Dominions and their Mother Country
Authors: Kenny Courtney
Published: January 2009

Having completed our review of the historical relations, we are now in a position to inquire how nearly the self-governing Dominions have already approached in actual fact to their theoretical equality with the mother-country. I prefer, for distinctness sake to add the epithet “Self-governing”; for they form only a part of the King's “Dominions” in the wide older sense of that word. The Imperial Conference of 1907 introduced a new and narrower sense, in which it is now limited to such Dominions as have Responsible Government. (Canada in 1867 desired to be called a “Kingdom,” but it was feared that the United States would resent it.)
A Day in Court at Home and Abroad
Authors: Amos Maurice
Published: January 2009

So far as the present writer is aware very little has been written upon Civil Procedure of a critical or analytical character since the days of JBentham. This deficiency appears to he observable even in the legal literature of the Continent, which is so much richer than our own in the application to legal problems of critical methods.
Ratification and the Release of Directors from Personal Liability
Authors: Partridge R. J. C.
Published: January 2009

When “ratification” is raised as an issue in relation to directors' breaches of duty, the difficulty which is most commonly discussed is how to draw the line between ratifiable and non-ratifiable breaches.

What has received considerably less attention is the meaning of “ratification” itself. This is evidenced, not the least, by the variety of other names attributed to the process performed by the general meeting when it “ratifies” a breach of duty. This has variously been described as “adoption,” “confirmation,” “affirmation,” or mere “approval.” Ironically, it is clear that the concept has nothing to do with “ratification” as it is understood in the law of agency, though this is the name most widely used.
Legislative Supremacy and the Rule of Law: Democracy and Constitutionalism
Authors: Allan T. R. S.
Published: January 2009

“… for it is impossible that one should be Judge and party, for the Judge is to determine between party and party, or between the Government and the party; and an Act of Parliament can do no wrong, though it may do several things that look pretty odd;”

City of London v. Wood, 12 Mod. 669, 687, per Holt C.J.

“And forasmuch as the legislature always have justice and truth before their eyes, and their false recitals (if there are any) are made upon false information, from thence it follows that they do not intend any one to be concluded by such recital grounded upon falsehood, for he that says to the contrary affirms that their interest is to oppress men wrongfully, which is indecent to be said of them, and he who insists that some shall be concluded by such falsehood, impugns the intent of the makers of the Act, and in that the Act itself, for the Act is nothing else but the intention of the makers of it.”

The Earl of Leicester v. Heydon (1570) 1 Plowden 384, 398.
Easements: Positive Duties on the Servient Owner?
Authors: Waite A. J.
Published: January 2009

The prevalent view of English lawyers as stated by Megarry & Wade1 is that “it is most unlikely that a right would be accepted as an easement if it involved the servient tenant in the expenditure of money; for none of the recognised easements does so, except the obligation to fence in order to keep out cattle.” This view has been expressed as a rule of law in the recent case of Ranee v. Elvin.2 Whether as a rule or as a mere presumption, it is widely regarded as part of the very fabric of the law of easements: timeless and immutable.
Legislating in Defence of the French Language
Authors: Munday Roderick
Published: January 2009

In the preface to his memoirs, Casanova outlined his reasons for writing them in French. Having noted that the clarity, precision and grace of the French language are such that a cultivated person cannot help but fall beneath its spell, he went on to mention one further feature:

It is worth observing that among all the living languages in the republic of letters, French is the only one which its presiding judges have sentenced not to enrich itself at the expense of the other languages.

Arguably this is a proud posture for a language to strike, hermetically cocooned within a self-imposed cultural bridewell. Nevertheless, Casanova's observation was, to a degree, an accurate representation of the cultured French of his day and, curiously, is probably truer today that it has ever been.
Registration, Fraud and Notice
Authors: Thompson M. P.
Published: January 2009

For a considerable period of time, statutes have existed which require the registration of deeds, third party incumbrances affecting land, or title to the land itself. In general, the sanction for non-compliance with these registration requirements is that a purchaser for valuable consideration takes free from any interest which should have, but has not, been registered. Throughout the period when registration statutes have been in force, however, a tension has existed between literal compliance with them on the one hand, and seeking to read into them general equitable principles on the other. The effect of introducing these principles is to bind a purchaser by notice of an unregistered interest that is not protected in the appropriate manner by registration.
Writs and Bills
Authors: Hollond H. A.
Published: January 2009

‘The system of forms of action, or the writ system, is the most important characteristic of English medieval law, and it was not abolished until its piecemeal destruction in the nineteenth century.’ Maitland thus reminds us that we have to know a fair amount about forms of action in order to understand the modern law, and as forms of action were based on writs, we must know something about the writ.
The Logic of “Exceptions”
Authors: Williams Glanville
Published: January 2009

Every so often the Appeal Committee of the House of Lords produces a decision that sets back the rational development of the criminal law for several years or decades.

Other courts do this too. But when the lords are at fault it is particularly disappointing: because they should be the élite of the judiciary; because they have the time to consider their decisions properly; because counsel who argue cases before them (having thrashed them out in two lower courts) should be unusually well-prepared; because the lords have the authority to overrule ill-considered decisions of the lower courts; and because their own pronouncements are (if things go wrong) especially hard to overturn. What makes these aberrational decisions particularly disconcerting is that the lords commonly show no appreciation of, and make no attempt to answer, the powerful arguments in the existing literature against the position they adopt.
New Light on Writs and Bills, and on the Influence of Roman Law in England in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
Authors: Hollond H. A.
Published: January 2009

All who belong to the small class of persons interested in medieval legal procedure will wish to express their thanks for, and admiration of, the latest contribution made to our knowledge of the subject by the distinguished literary partnership of Mr. H. G. Richardson and Dr. G. O. Sayles. It appears in Volume 60 of the Selden Society publications (dated 1941, but issued last year) entitled, ‘Select Cases of Procedure without Writ under Henry III.’ It is, we are told, an instalment prefatory to another volume which will carry the story beyond the year 1272.
Reflections on the Criminological Enterprise
Authors: Bottoms Anthony E.
Published: January 2009

If I may freely paraphrase Lady Bracknell (inThe Importance of Being Earnest), to deliver an inaugural lecture one year after arrival in Cambridge seems unfortunate; to deliver it after being in post for two years looks like carelessness. Yet, as those from the Institute of Criminology will know, there is a particular reason for this timing. This month marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the University's postgraduate course in criminology, and I was myself a student on that first course, back in 1961. For me, therefore, there is a special personal satisfaction that this lecture is immediately to be followed by our formal celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the course.
“Occidere” and the Lex Aquilia
Authors: Andrews N. H.
Published: January 2009

This paper is concerned with the way in which the verb occidere was treated in the Lex Aquilia and with the explanation for this.

Professor Dieter Nörr appears to have offered the most recent explanation of the narrow scope given to the verb in the first chapter of the statute. He makes two points. First, he traces the distinction between direct killing (occidere) and indirectly causing death (mortis causam praestare or praebere) to early Greek law and speculates that this distinction was transmitted into Roman law through the Greek schools of rhetoric. Secondly, he suggests that the Lex Cornelia de sicarüs et veneficis included the phrase mortis causam praestare. If true, this second point would show how firmly the distinction had become established. The phrase would also have provided an obvious parallel for the jurists when engaged in interpreting the Lex Aquilia.
The Development of the Deathbed Transfer in Medieval English Manor Courts
Authors: Bonfield L. , Poos L. R.
Published: January 2009

Property owners in modern common-law jurisdictions have a wide variety of legal instruments at their disposal to effect the inter-generational transfer of wealth. Indeed the object of much reform in the area of estate transmission in the course of this century has been to reduce the formality required to execute the comprehensive succession arrangements which anthropologists and historians have termed “strategies.” Yet the process of relaxation of formality has not produced a law devoid of requirement, because societal interest is thought at times to conflict with unimpinged informality of transfer. For example, legislatures and courts believe that some formality protects the property owner (who at the time his act has legal effect may be dead) from those who seek to influence or subvert the succession process. Moreover, because nearly all members of society partake of the process, the administrative burden on the judicial system is lessened when law provides a clear set of hurdles for a disposition to surmount in order to be valid. Likewise, the more detailed and tailored to these aims the requirements for validity are constructed, the less likely disputes regarding dispositions will arise. Thus, in modern law, the virtue of simplification is balanced with protective concerns, creating a law of wills and trusts on the one hand sufficiently complex both to embarrass practitioners and confound students, but leaving individuals relatively free to craft estate plans consistent with their own desires.
Liability for Crime
Authors: Barnes Henry
Published: January 2009

The Penal Code of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic: ‘Article 10. Persons who commit socially dangerous acts shall be liable to the application of measures of social defence of a judicial-correctional character only—

(a) if they acted deliberately,i.e., if they foresaw the socially dangerous consequences of their acts, or desired those consequences, or knowingly permitted them to happen, or

(b) if they acted carelessly,i.e., if they did not foresee the consequences of their acts although they ought to have foreseen them, or if they light-mindedly hoped to avert auch consequences.’
The Situs of Debts in the Conflict of Laws—Illogical, Unnecessary and Misleading
Authors: Rogerson P. J.
Published: January 2009

It has been suggested by several writers that property of an intangible nature, such as debts, should be subject to the same choice of law rules as those which govern tangible property and immovable property. The idea that the lex situs should be adopted to determine proprietary questions relating to debts is particularly prevalent in cases where the English courts are called upon to decide whether to recognise a foreign government's actions or whether to garnish a debt. But should one of the most dominant choice of law rules, that of the lex situs, gain an even wider application than it already clearly has? Before answering this question any suggestion that the lex situs should be adopted for matters relating to debts has to face the obvious logic that that which cannot be touched or moved cannot be said to be capable of a position or a situation. This is, of course, self-evident but apart from an occasional assertion the courts have not felt constrained by the logic of the matter and for a number of purposes they have stated rules to give a debt that characteristic which it lacks: a physical location.
The “Lower Branches” of the Legal Profession: A London Society of Attorneys and Solicitors of the 1730s and its “Moots”
Authors: Horwitz Henry , Bonfield Lloyd
Published: January 2009

The history in the eighteenth century of attorneys and solicitors—those who “practiced the forms or ‘mechanics’ of the law”—was first investigated in depth in Robert Robson's monograph of 1959. More recently, and following upon Geoffrey Holmes's suggestive survey of the lawyers in Augustan England, articles by M. Miles and A. Aylett have enlarged our knowledge of the social origins and geographical distribution of attorneys over the century as a whole and offered detailed analyses of attorneys' business in the West Riding and Cheshire during the latter half of the century.
The Tort of Conspiracy and Civil Secondary Liability
Authors: Sales Philip
Published: January 2009

The litigation in Metall und Rohstoff A.G. v. Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette Inc. appeared to herald a much-needed review by the House of Lords of the torts of conspiracy to injure by lawful and unlawful means. Since that will not now take place, the law will for the present remain as the Court of Appeal in Metall und Rohstoff has interpreted the decision of the House of Lords in Lonrho Ltd v. Shell Petroleum Co. Ltd. (No. 2). The purpose of this article is to argue that there is an important division in principle between the tort of conspiracy to injure another by lawful means and the tort of conspiracy to injure by unlawful means, and that the rules governing liability for the former tort should be different from, and more limited than, the rules governing liability for the latter tort. Thus recent authority is questioned on the basis that the law in this area was properly set out in the older cases, but for reasons which lie buried and are not always expressly articulated in them. It will be the thrust of this article that the narrow view of the scope of conspiracy to injure by unlawful means which appears in the speech of Lord Diplock in Lonrho v. Shell (No. 2), as interpreted after full argument in the Court of Appeal in Metall und Rohstoff, is mistaken, and that the House of Lords (when eventually it has the opportunity to review these two decisions) should revive the distinction which existed between conspiracy to injure by lawful means and conspiracy to injure by unlawful means prior to 1982.
Some Early Chancellors
Authors: Hollond H. A.
Published: January 2009

Cancelli, the diminutive of cancer, means primarily, a lattice or grill, and so secondarily, an enclosure bounded by a barrier of that kind, and thirdly, the duties or office carried on in such an enclosure. Cancellarius naturally means a person associated with cancelli.
‘To A and his issue’: The Law of Property Act, 1925, Section 130 (2)
Authors: Megarry R. E.
Published: January 2009

Mr. S. J. Bailey's article, ‘The Law of Property Act, 1925, s. 130 (2),’ published in this Journal in 1936 (Vol. 6, p. 67), appears to have attracted no dissent and weighty approbation. The article assailed commonly-held but little-discussed views on the effect of the sub-section, and reached conclusions which have been accepted by authorities such as Professor Cheshire. With a due sense of my temerity I propose to launch a frontal attack on this well-entrenched position.
Sir Edward Coke
Authors: Holdsworth William
Published: January 2009

Coke and Bacon, the two greatest lawyers of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, were members of Trinity College. Bacon was the greatest jurist of his day. Coke was the greatest of our common lawyers. I account it a great honour that Trinity College should in 1926, the tercentenary of Bacon's death, have asked me to say something of Bacon as a lawyer, and that in this year, 1934, the tercentenary of Coke's death, it has asked me to give this lecture.
Priority After 1925 of Mortgages of a Legal Estate in Land
Authors: Megarry R.E.
Published: January 2009

For reasons both of space and of simplicity, the scope of this article is restricted within narrow limits. The subject to be considered is the priority of mortgages made after 1925 which affect a legal estate in land. This by itself excludes any consideration of transitional provisions or of mortgages of an equitable interest; in addition, the questions of the Middlesex and Yorkshire Deeds Registries, tacking, and conflicts between more than two mortgages will be ignored. Except where otherwise indicated, ‘mortgage’ is used as including both a mortgage and a charge.
Addendum to the Table of English Reports
Authors: Williams Glanville. L.
Published: January 2009

In many of the newer law libraries the English Reports Reprint is the only series covering cases before 1866. Even if, as in the older libraries, the original reports are themselves available, they are frequently so out of the way that it is not normally worth the trouble to consult them. Unfortunately, however, a reader who finds some abbreviated reference to a case decided before 1866 cannot be sure that it will be found in the Reprint. Despite the claim in the Index Chart that the Reprint is a ‘complete verbatim re-issue of all the decisions of the English Courts prior to 1866’, it does not include all the collateral reports, nor does it include the specialized reports of Bail Court, Bankruptcy, Railway and Canal, Election, Registration, Local Government, and Patent and Trade Mark cases. Thus the inexpert worker may waste some time before he discovers that, for instance, ‘D. & R.’ is not necessarily to be found in Volume 171, or that ‘Moo. J. B.’ is not a misprint for ‘Moo. L B.’ and is not to be found in Volume 72, or, for the matter of that, any other volume.
The Interpretation of Statutes
Authors: Amos Maurice Sheldon
Published: January 2009

Section 21 of the Matrimonial Causes Act, 1857, provides that a wife deserted by her husband may apply to a metropolitan police magistrate for an order for the protection of her earnings; and the statute further provides that it shall be lawful for the husband and for his creditors to apply to the magistrate who made the order for the discharge thereof. A Mrs. Sharpe obtained such an order, and in 1864 her husband wished to apply for its discharge. He discovered that the magistrate who had made the order was dead; and the question what was now his proper course of action came before a bench composed of Cockburn C.J., Blackburn and Shee JJ., who decided unanimously that this was a casus omissus, and that it was not competent for the husband to apply to some other metropolitan magistrate who might present the advantage of being alive. Forthwith, and in the same year, there was passed the Matrimonial Causes Act, 1864, which consists of one section only, and which provides that ‘if the said magistrate shall have died or been removed or have become incapable of acting, then in every such case the husband... may apply to the magistrate for the time being acting as the successor or in the place of the magistrate who made the order.
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
Authors: Rankin George
Published: January 2009

In November, 1921, Lord Haldane delivered to the Cambridge University Law Society an address on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (Cambridge Law Journal, vol. i, p. 143). He was then an ex-Lord Chancellor and for thirty-eight years had had experience of that tribunal-for twelve years as one of its judges. If it seems unnecessary and even unfortunate that the same subject should be given to me, I may point out—though only by way of confession and avoidance—that Lord Haldane on that occasion insisted that ‘You cannot learn much about it from documents’—‘unless you have lived in it and in the atmosphere you do not know what happens there’—‘the only way to study it is to watch it’.
The Covenant of the League of Nations and War
Authors: Williams John Fischer
Published: January 2009

The object which the makers of the Covenant of the League of Nations proposed to themselves was ‘to promote international co-operation and to achieve international peace and security.’ The first of the means by which this object was to be attained was, according to the preamble of the Covenant, ‘the acceptance of obligations not to resort to war’; the operative part of the Covenant, following the preamble, in several passages expressly binds the members of the league ‘not to resort (or ‘not to go’) to war.’
The Benefit of a Restrictive Covenant
Authors: Bailey S. J.
Published: January 2009

According to the general principles of the common law, no man is bound by a contract to which he was not a party. It is true that the personal representatives of a deceased person may be liable upon his contracts after his death, and that covenants contained in a lease may bind assigns of the lease or reversion; but the common law admits no other importanta exceptions to the general rule. Equity, however, evolved an exception of great importance. The decision inTulkv.Moxhayshows that a negative covenant restricting the user of the covenantor's land may be enforced by injunction against his successors in title; and, when this occurs, the burden of the restrictive covenant ‘ runs with ’ (i.e.is attached to) the land in equity.
Jury Trial To-day
Authors: Jackson R. M.
Published: January 2009

Juries are divided into juries of presentment and juries of issue; this paper is concerned with the latter kind, commonly called trial juries. Modern writers are singularly chary of committing themselves to any opinion about juries. The eulogies of Blackstone are definitely unfashionable. The current opinion is perhaps on these lines: jury trial in civil cases is sometimes satisfactory and sometimes most unsatisfactory, and hence the restriction of jury trial has been a wise development; however, there is much to be said for jury trial in criminal cases and (in the past, at least) in cases where the liberty of the subject is concerned. If juries have in the past protected persons against political oppression, and if the conditions under which they did so are still existing or reasonably possible, then we have a point of such importance that it should receive priority in discussion.
Liability for Things Naturally on the Land
Authors: Goodhart A.L.
Published: January 2009

In his valuable article ‘Dangerous Things and the Non-Natural User of Land,’ Mr. Stallybrass says: ‘The distinction between the natural and non-natural user of land is often confused with the distinction between things naturally on the land and those which are brought or artificially created there. We have already seen that to some extent this confusion can be detected in Lord Cairns’ speech itself [in Rylands v. Fletcher]. But in fact there is nothing in common between the two conceptions except the common use of the word “natural.”’
Fraud and the Statutes of Limitations
Authors: Brunyate John
Published: January 2009

The recent case of Lynn v. Bamber has revived an interesting and undecided point upon the Statute of Limitations and has given McCardie J. an opportunity of exploring with his usual thoroughness a somewhat difficult region of law. In Lynn v. Bamber the plaintiff bought from the defendant young plum trees warranted to be ‘Purple Pershores.’ Some years later, on their bearing fruit, he found them to be ‘Coe's Late Red,’ a cheaper sort of plum. He sued the defendant for damages for breach of warranty and, as his suit was brought more than six years after he had bought the trees and would prima facie be barred by the Statute of Limitations, 1623, he alleged that the defendant had fraudulently misrepresented to him the nature of the trees and had fraudulently concealed from him the breach of warranty. McCardie J. found on the facts that fraud was not proved and that therefore the Statute of Limitations was a good defence, but held in a long and interesting judgement that if fraud had been proved the Statute of Limitations would have been excluded.
Effect of the ionosphere on defocusing of space‐based radars
Authors: van de Kamp Max , Cannon Paul S. , Terkildsen Michael
Published: January 2009

Space‐based synthetic aperture radars can be detrimentally affected by electron density variations in the ionosphere, which cause signal phase variations resulting in image defocusing. In order to evaluate the significance of this problem, this paper determines how often the phase perturbations are large enough to cause defocusing. High cadence GPS TEC signals collected on Ascension Island during sunspot minimum and in Papua New Guinea over half a solar cycle have been analyzed. Both locations lie in the equatorial crest region. For a space‐based synthetic radar operating at 435 MHz, the average probability of defocusing varies from zero at quiet times, to around 1% between 18:00 and 24:00 at solar minimum, and to 45% between 18:00 and 24:00 at solar maximum. Corresponding values are given for radars operating at other frequencies. A method is developed to estimate such variations from the large database of S4 measurements.