The Gazette 1910-11

The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.

[MAY, 1910

112

Act, when there- would be an action and a cross-action, and the two were tried together, possibly with one brief, .or at all events with the same Counsel, with the same witnesses, and the Master had to apportion the costs of those two independent actions. Therefore, there is no difficulty in my mind in the interpretation of the order; there is no difficulty in my mind in the carrying out of the order so interpreted. I do not mean to say that a cross-notice of appeal is always an independent notice. It may be distinctly dependent ; it may be that if the court set aside so much of the decision, then the other party will claim that it ought to be done in a particular way. Under those circumstances I have no doubt that the court would, in giving direction as to taxation, see that the costs of that dependent motion was properly awarded. We have nothing of that kind here. In my opinion we have simply to consider what is the effect of what were practically two independent orders of the court upon two independent appeals, and how they should be interpreted. In my opinion, in a difficult case, Hamilton, J., has given suggestions they are no more to the Master as to how he should carry out what is his duty, that is, apportioning them.

-was right. In this case the plaintiff failed in his action, but the judge gave judgment for the defendant without costs. Both .parties appealed from that decision, and each .claimed that judgment ought to be entered for him with costs. The defendants only appealed, therefore, against the disallowance of their costs. It happened that the defen– dants lodged their notice of appeal first, and then, by ord, 58, rr. 6 and 7, there is to be no separate notice of appeal on the other side, but what is called a cross-notice of appeal is given. In my opinion that is merely machinery to ensure that if there are appeals by both parties, those two shall come on together, and that there is no other meaning or object of those rules. The consequence is that it by no means follows that the appeal and cross-appeal are dependent one on the other. They may be so, but they may be quite independent. In this case they were quite independent, and the rights of the parties when they came to argue these appeals were, in my opinion, exactly the same as if two independent notices of appeal had been given and they were heard by the Court at the same time. The appeal of the plaintiff was by far the wider in its scope, it went to the whole of the . decision ; and if the two had been contested ,at length, I think that it is quite possible that the Court might have elected to hear the appeal against the whole of the decision before it heard the appeal with regard to costs, and there would have been nothing, in my opinion, contrary to the rules of court .if they had chosen to do so. Under those circumstances they made one order, which was substantially two, dismissing each of the appeals with costs ; and the question before us is, whether the mere fact that one of the appeals is in form of notice of appeal and the other of cross-notice of appeal, is to give the former such a position of priority that the taxation of those two sets of costs are to be on wholly different principles. In my opinion the decision of the court was not that in any sense. It dismissed each of the appeals as if they were independent appeals with costs, and the Master has to tax the costs of this appeal and this cross-appeal upon that principle. It is not a matter of any difficulty. It is similar to that which perpetually occurred before the Judicature

Appeal dismissed with costs. (Reported The Solicitors' Weekly Reporter, Vol. liv., p. 424).

Journal and

Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1906.

THE

TO

MEMORANDUM WITH REFERENCE

IN THE LAND REGISTRY OF

PRACTICE

(IRE–

IRELAND UNDER THE LABOURERS

LAND) ACT, 1906.

LAND REGISTRY OF IRELAND, CENTRAL OFFICE, DUBLIN, April, 1910.

NOTE. This Memorandum is issued merely with a view to assisting the Local Registrars, Solicitors to Rural District Councils, and others in the work of Registration of Title under the Labourers Act of 1906. It must be taken as liable to modification as a result of judicial decisions, or otherwise,