The Gazette 1967/71

r.5 or s.2 of the 1919 Act. If reinstatement had been possible in 1947 the cost would have been £45,000. However, the respondent corporation did not allocate another site until much later and it was agreed that reinstatement could not reason ably have been started before 1961. Held, that the correct date for assessment of compensation was 1961, and not 1947. (Birmingham Corporation v. West Midland Baptist Trust Association—H.L.—[1969] 3 All E. R. 72.) Solicitor wrong not to name client A solicitor acting on behalf of the lessee of premises under a lease within the protection of the Leasehold Property (Repairs) Act, 1938 acted improperly when, on his client's instructions, he refused to disclose the lessee's name and address to the landlords when they were seeking to bring an action for forfeiture and damages for breach of the repairing convenants in the lease, for there is no privilege entitling a solicitor to refuse to give a client's name to the Court or to interested parties. • The Court of Appeal (Lord Denning, Winn L.J., and Cross, L. J.) so stated in dismissing an appeal by three defendants from the order of Judge Moylan at Edmonton County Court last December granting to the freeholders leave to institute proceedings under section 1 of the 1938 Act for damages for breaches of repairing cove nants in a long lease of the premises. Per Lord Denning. M. R.—In the circum stances of the present case, when Gale & Phelps were acting, as they said, on behalf of a lessee, it was, in his Lordships' view, their duty not only to the court but also to the other side and all concerned, to give the lesee's name when re quested to do so. Mr. Gale, if subpoenaed as a witness, could certainly be compelled to give the name when requested to do so, if it was relevant to the proceedings and could not assert the client's privilege to protect him from such disclosure. Of course, such disclosure would be contrary to his client's interests, for the lessees would be liable on the covenants. But it was quite clear from Bursill v. Tanner (1885) 16 QBD 1) that there was no privilege giving a solicitor permission to refuse to disclose a client's name to the court. It would be an impossible situation if a solicitor paying rent, negotiating, and giving a counter- notice on behalf of a client could refuse all the time to give his name. Even though the solicitor in the present case was not in the witness box, his Lordship thought that when he was conducting affairs on behalf of a lessee, and the lessor, who was vitally concerned, 63

solicitor acting for an accused person in criminal proceedings having failed to serve a witness sum mons on a doctor whose evidence was desired at the trial, instructed counsel during the trial to apply to the judge for a bench warrant for the doctors' arrest and then stated in the witness box that the doctor had wilfully evaded the summons —which the doctor denied—injuries suffered by the reason of the solicitor's instructions and the doctors consequent arrest and detention were not maintainable. On appeal, it was submitted on behalf of the plaintiff that the plaintiff did not complain of the solicitor's evidence but of his instructions to counsel to apply for a bench war rant and thus by instituting proceedings which led to the plaintiff's imprisonment. This, it was submitted, was analogous to malicious prosecu tion. Reference was made to a passage in Salmond on Tort that it is an actionable injury to pro cure the arrest and imprisonment of a plaintiff by means of a judicial process whether civil or criminal, if instituted maliciously and without reasonable cause. It was also submitted that an action in negligence would apply because the de fendant owed a duty to the plaintiff to serve him or at least to take proper care before he made the application for a bench warrant. The Court of Appeal rejected the submission on the same grounds namely, that in whatever way the cause of action was claimed, it must not be allowed to defeat the principle that a witness was not liable to a civil suit for words said in the witness box (Roy v. Prior— Times newspaper, 15th July, 1969). Compulsory Purchase—Compensation—Date for assessing equivalent Value When compensation for compulsory purchase is assessed on the basis of equivalent reinstatement under r.5 of s.2 of the Acquisition of Land (Assessment of Compensation) Act 1919, the date for which the assessment is to be made is not that of the notice to treat, but the earliest date at which reinstatement could reasonably have been begun. (Decision of Court of Appeal affirmed). Facts—In 1947 the respondent corporation's order for the compulsory purchase of a chapel owned by the appellants was approved by the Minister of Town and Country Planning and registered as a land charge; a notice to treat was thus deemed to have been served. It was agreed that the chapel was and would have been devoted to a purpose of such a nature that there was no general demand for the purpose, and that reinstate ment was bona fide intended. Compensation, therefore, fell to be assessed on the basis of reasonable cost of equivalent reinstatement under