The Gazette 1967/71

London Cab Act, 1968. by suggesting that the car was "presently available" for hire. [Braeme v. Anderson & Another. Q.B.D. The Times,

were still employed under contracts of service and that the arrangement for paying their earnings in a lump sum was merely an agreement as to the method where by the individual partners should be paid under their contracts of service. [E. Rennison & Son v. Minister of Social Security. Ch. Div. The Times, 2 December, 1970.] [See also Relihan v. Kerry Co. Council—ante.] Natural Justice A last year student, one of several seen naked on the campus of the University of Keele last June, unsuccess fully applied for an order preventing the university from excluding him from residence during the remainder of the academic year 1970-71, even though the University had not complied with the rules of natural justice in ex cluding him. The Vice-Chancellor, stating that it would not be right to set aside the University's decision because it was perfectly proper on the facts, dismissed the applic ation for an injunction by Mr. Simon Glynn, of Hanley, Staffordshire, directed against the University and the Vice-Chancellor Mr. William Campbell Stewart, who did not give Mr. Glynn a hearing before deciding to exclude him from residence for the 1970-71 session and to fine him £10. [Glynn v. University of Keele and Another. Ch. Div. The Times, 18 December, 1970.] Negligence When the Court granted leave to appeal to the House of Lords in a case involving a child injured while tres passing on a railway line, it said that the English law on the question was in a confused state and should be altered. Their Lordships, in reserved judgements, dismissed an appeal by the British Railways Board from the de cision of Mr. Justice Cairns in February awarding the plaintiff, Peter Herrington, of Mitcham, £7,440 in respect of injuries he received on June 7, 1965, when he fell on a live electrified railway line. He was six at the time. The judge had held that the defendant's were negligent for inter alia, permitting the fence bounding the line to remain in a dilapidated condition. [Herrington v. British Railways Board. Court of Appeal. The Times, 3 December 1970.] A hospital was held to be negligent in allowing a 17-year-old patient known to be a suicide risk to climb through a window, walk along a grass path and climb up some steps on to a roof, from which he threw him self to the ground where he was seriously injured. [Selfa v. Ilford & District Hospital Management Com mittee. Q.B.D. The Times, 26 November, 1970.] The Judical Committee, by a majority, held that a declaration by a plaintiff in New South Wales claiming damages against the Mutual Life Assurance Co. Ltd. for giving him gratuitously negligent information and advice did not disclose any cause of action and was not within the principles laid down in Hedley Byrne & Co. Ltd. v. Heller & Partners Ltd. ([1964] A.C. 465.) [Mutual Life & Citizens Assurance Co. Ltd. v. Evath Privy Council. The Times, 17 November, 1970.]

2 December, 1970.] Local Government

Candidate cannot be appointed a holder of a per manent office in a Local Authority without a specific order from the County Manager. The defendant County Council appealed from an order of Teevan J. who had held that the plaintiff was holder of a permanent office of Clerk of Works with the Council. The plaintiff was first appointed tempor arily for a period of 4 months; no renewals of this appointment were made between 1951 and 1964 when in April 1964 the County Manager made an order purport ing to continue the "temporary employment" of the plaintiff and renewed this order every six months. In December 1964 the County Council decided to create four permanent posts, and they intimated what they wanted the plaintiff and three others who held the temporary post of Clerk of Works to be appointed to those posts. The plaintiff then sought a declaration that he held under the defendants a permanent post. The Supreme Court (O'Dalaigh C. J. Walsh and McLoughlin J. J.) allowed the appeal. The Chief Justice, delivering the judgment of the Court was of the opinion that in Devanny v. Dublin Board of Assistance (1949)- 831 ILTR — Gavan Duffy P. was in a position to hold that the plaintiff was a permanent officer because the mode of appointment adopted was equally appro priate to a permanent appointment as to a temporary one. The decision of Dixon J., in Breslin v. Dublin Board of Assistance (1956) 90 ILTR was approved; this was to the effect that in 1947 the plaintiff was appointed tempor ary clerical assistant to the stores staff officer and that his temporary employment was continued by half-yearly orders of the chief executive officer from 1950 to 23 March 1953, when he was dismissed. Dixon J. had held that from 1947 the plaintiff was at no time a per manent officer and that even his appointment as a tem porary officer had been invalid on the ground that no officer's scheme had come into force under the Regul ations. In this case, the contract purported to have been created by an offer of the County Engineer acting on behalf of the deputy County Manager which was accepted by the plaintiff. However Section 19 of the County Management Act 1940 by which a County Manager in exercising his exclusive function of making appointments could only do so by order, had not been complied with. The appeal was accordingly allowed, and the plaintiff's claim for a declaration that he was a permanent officer was dismissed. [Relihan v. Kerry Co. Council. Supreme Court un- reported. 14 May, 1970.] Master & Servant Seven married women employees of a firm of solicitors with individual contracts of service entered into a deed of partnership to carry on the business of a secretarial agency at the solicitors' offices and continued to do the same work as before, the only difference being that all their wages were paid to one of the partners for dis tribution among them. His Lordship held that they