The Gazette 1912-13

The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.

MAY, 1912]

Treasury Chambers, Whitehall, S.W., 28th March, 1912. DEAR SIR, I am desired by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to acknowledge the receipt of your letter forwarding a copy of a Memorial submitted to his predecessor in 1907 by the Council of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland, on the subject Tof the Annual Certificate Duty payable by Solicitors in Ireland. Yours faithfully, (Signed), J. T. DAVIES. W. G. Wakely, Esq., Secretary, The Incorporated Law Society of Ireland. Treasury Chambers, Whitehall, S.W., 15th April, 1912. DEAR SIR, With reference to your letter of the 27th ultimo, asking for the abolition of the Solicitors' Certificate Duty, I am desired by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that he regrets that he does not see his way to accede to your request. It would be impossible to confine such action to Ireland, and to abolish the duty throughout the United Kingdom would entail a considerable loss of revenue. Yours faithfully, (Signed), H. P. HAMILTON. W. G. Wakely, Esq., Secretary, The Incorporated Law Society of Ireland. Recent Decisions affecting Solicitors. (Notes of decisions, whether in reported or unreported cases, of interest to Solicitors, are invited from Members.) COURT OF APPEAL (ENGLAND). (Before Cozens-Hardy, M.R., Fletcher Moulton and Buckley, L.JJ.) Rakusen v. Ellis, Munday and Clarke. March 19, 1912. Solicitor after acting for one party, acting for opponent in same dispute. THIS was an appeal by the defendants, a firm of Solicitors, from a decision of Mr. Justice Warrington. The plaintiff, in the case had moved for an injunction to restrain the defendants from acting as Solicitors for a company in certain

arbitration proceedings between the plaintiff and the company, and for an order restrain– ing the defendants from communicating to the company confidential information obtained from the plaintiff. The plaintiff was at one time in the employment of the company, and in June, 1911, the company gave notice to determine his employment. In September, 1911. the plaintiff consulted the defendants with reference to this attempted dismissal of himself, and he gave the particular partner (Mr. Munday), who attended to his business, confidential information relating' to his dispute with the company. In October, 1911, the plaintiff changed his Solicitors, and immediately afterwards he issued a writ against the company for damages for wrongful dismissal. That action was stayed on the terms that the matter should be referred to arbitration. This arbitration was proceeded with, and the company had recently changed its Solicitors, and retained Messrs. Ellis, Munday and Clarke (the present appellants) to act for it. Thus, these Solicitors after acting first for the plaintiff in this dispute, were now employed to act for the defendants. But Mr. Clarke was the only partner who was proposing to act for the defendants, and Mr. Munday offered an undertaking not to communicate any con– fidential information obtained from the plaintiff to Mr. Clarke. The matter came before Mr. Justice Warrington on March 15, 1912. and he held that, apart from whether there was any danger of the Solicitors com– municating to the company any confidential information given to them by the plaintiff, the Court ought not to allow a firm of Solicitors which had acted for a plaintiff in a particular cause or matter to act sub– sequently as Solicitors for the defendants ; and he granted an injunction accordingly. The defendants appealed, and the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal. The Master of the Rolls, in the course of his judgment, said that he did not doubt for a moment there might be cases where the circumstances were such that a Solicitor ought not to be allowed to act for the other side because he could not clear his mind of information' given to him confidentially by his former client; but the Court ought to treat each of these cases as a matter of substance on the particular facts, and