Case: Addis v Burrows [1948] 1 KB 444
Outcome: considered
second case is Addis v Burrows [1948] 1 KB 444. There premises were let on a yearly tenancy "until the tenancy be determined at the end of the first or any subsequent year by one of the parties giving to the other of them six calendar months previous notice in writing." On the face of the tenancy agreement the period of the tenancy was from 1 January 1944 to 30 June 1945, not a term of one year. The lessors served a notice to quit on 28 June 1945. The notice required the tenant to quit "at the expiration of the year of your tenancy which will expire next after the end of one half year from the service of this notice". The Court of Appeal decided that the tenancy granted was for eighteen months and thereafter on a yearly tenancy. It also held that the notice to quit was valid. Evershed LJ dealt with the sufficiency of the notice in a lengthy passage between pages 452-456. He said (at 453) that that notice "puts plainly on the tenant the obligation of ascertaining the date meant by the form of words used. Prima facie, the problem is not very difficult. As [Lord Greene MR] observed during the argument, the tenant requires for its solution two things only, a modern calendar and the tenancy agreement. Armed with those two things he asks himself first: When was this notice served on me? ... [H]e is next required to find out when one half year ends after the service of the notice. ... [T]hen only remains the question: when does the year of his tenancy current on December 29, 1945, come to an end? It is true that involves the interpretation of the tenancy agreement. But, if I am right in the view which I have expressed, he should have no great difficulty in answering that question." Evershed LJ distinguished Phipps v Rogers . He said (at 455) of that case that there was "an accumulation of difficulties provided by the joint effect of the language of the tenancy agreement and the very unusual form of the notice to quit." Later (also at 455) he pointed out that the court had come "to the conclusion that the tenant was involved in so many difficulties that there was a failure on the landlord's part either to give a certain date or to supply the tenant with a formula from which certainty could be ascertained and that, therefore, the notice was not good." By way of contrast, as regards the case before the court the judge said that any ambiguity was capable of a clear answer. The last case is Allam &amp; Co Ltd v Europa Poster Services Ltd [1968] 1 WLR 638. I need not go into the facts. I cite the case for the observation by Buckley J who looked closely at Phipps v Rogers and Addis v Burrows and (at 652) said this: "No doubt if those cases are both good law, as I must assume that they are, the question of the validity of the notice, the interpretation of which involves some question of law, must become a question of degree. There must be cases which, because of the difficulty or complexity of the case, fall within the principle of Phipps v Rogers . There must be others which, notwithstanding that some question of law arises, because of the simplicity or comparative simplicity of the problem fall within Addis v Burrows ."