The Gazette 1946-49

in Queen's Club Garden Estates Ltd. v. Bignell in which it was held by the High Court in England that in order that a weekly tenancy may be deter– mined by a notice to quit, the notice must be one which expires at the end of a periodic week from the commencement of the tenancy. The latest decision in this conflict of judicial opinion was recently given by the English Court of Appeal in Lemon v. Lardeur in which Queen's Club Gardens Estates Ltd. v. Bignell was approved and Simmons v. Crossley overruled. It is now the law in England that in any periodic tenancy whether yearly, quarterly, monthly or weekly the notice to quit to be valid must be given so as to expire at the end of the current period of the tenancy. This proposition was always accepted in regard to yearly tenancies but the decision if followed by Irish Courts will alter the law as it now stands with regard to monthly and weekly tenancies. O'Byrne, J. This was an appeal from the decision of Overend, J., on an application to review the taxation of a bill of solicitor and client costs. On the taxation, the client, a rate collector, alleged that there had been an agreement by his solicitor not to charge any solicitor and client costs, but that the solicitor should be remunerated for all work incidental to the collection of rates by receiving the party and party costs allowed against defaulting ratepayers. The Taxing Master held that such an agreement existed and disallowed the entire bill. On the application to review, Overend, J., held that normally a client would be estopped from raising such a point after signing a requisition to tax in the common form without reservation, but that the solicitor, by agreeing to go into evidence as to the existence of the agreement and not relying on such estoppel, was in his turn estopped from now raising that point. He held that the hearing before the Taxing Master had been unsatisfactory, inasmuch as the parties had not had an opportunity of going fully into evidence on the matter in dispute and remitted the case to the Taxing Master for further hearing. The client appealed to the Supreme Court, where, after several days' argument, judgment was reserved. The reserved judgment was in favour of the solicitor, dismissing the appeal. In the course of his judgment O'Byrne, J., pointed out that the application to review had not been quite regular, inasmuch as no formal certificate of taxation had been made, the Taxing Master having only Requisition for Taxation of Costs Estoppel THE reserved judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of James O'Brien, rate collector, to David Fleming, solicitor, was delivered recently by

made a report on his findings. Or. 65, rule 66 (3), of the Rules of 1905, contemplates that-an applica– tion to review taxation shall only be made after the certificate of taxation has been issued. As, how– ever, it appeared that the present case was in accor– dance with the usual procedure in the Taxing Office, the Court considered that the irregularity should not be treated as fatal to the application. The Taxing Master, he said, had acted on a wrong principle in deciding a material issue of fact on insufficient evidence and the case must go back to him for further hearing. (I.L.T. & S.J.) Landlord and Tenant Act, 1931 Application for Extension of Time for Claiming Relief BY section 19 (2) (a) of the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1931, references in the section to the termina– tion of a tenancy terminated by notice to quit, as a point of time, are to be construed as the date of service of the notice to quit. In a recent appeal heard by Davitt, J., against an order of the Circuit Judge refusing an application by the appellant for an extension of the time for serving notice of intention to claim relief under the Act the facts were as follows. The appellant had held certain business premises as tenant to the respondent under a lease for one year certain from ist October, 1942, and thereafter from year to year, determinable at the end of the first or any subsequent year of the tenancy by three months' notice in writing. On 15th March, 1945, while the term had still some six months to run to bring the tenant within the pro– visions of Section 19 (i) (a) entitling him to a new tenancy, the landlord served notice to quit to expire on ist October following. The tenant did not serve notice of intention to claim relief within one month from service of the notice to quit as required by Section 24 (2) (a) but subsequently applied under Section 45 for an extension of the time for so doing. It was held by the Circuit Judge that the tenant was not entitled to the benefit of the Act, as the tenancy having been determined for the purpose of Section 19 at the actual date of service of the notice to quit, before the tenant had been in occupation for three years, he never came within the provisions of Section 19 (i) (a) although the expiration of the notice to quit was contemporaneous with the expiration of three years from the commencement of the tenancy. He further held that on the facts of the case no justifiable cause had been shown for the tenant's failure to serve the notice of intention to claim relief in time. Davitt, J., affirmed the order of the Circuit Judge. As pointed out by counsel for the appellant in argument one result of the definition in Section 19 (2) (a) of the termination of the tenancy as meaning the date of service of the 48