The Gazette 1995

GAZETTE

DECEMBER 1995

donor intending a resulting trust.

well reasoned.

Succession Law in Ireland

Professor Brady also discusses the Court of Appeal decision in Sen -v- Headley [1991] Ch 425, where the Court held that title deeds could be the subject matter of a donatio mortis causa. He believes that this decision would be followed in the Irish Courts. In the area of law reform, the author discusses the time limit for bringing a Section 117 application. He says that there should be some extension of time allowed, where the child is under a disability and that this omission must rank as an oversight which cries out for amending legislation. He also strongly supports the Law Reform Commission Report of the Hague Convention (LRC36 1991), so that in general, the law that supports a person's succession is his nationality or habitual residence. In relation to assents, Professor Brady believes that the wide and unqualified language of Section 51 of the Succession Act was intended to J protect purchasers irrespective of the ] length of time between the death of | the owner and the sale of the owner's property. He queries the correctness of Irish decisions which held that the validity of assents could be questioned twenty years after the death of the owner without proof that there were unpaid debts still outstanding. In summary, any problems regarding the Succession Act, 1965, which a practitioner may have, are likely to be discussed in a clear, analytical and thorough fashion by Professor Brady in his book. All the major cases up to mid 1995, involving the Succession Act and many English and other common law cases regarding Succession Law in general, are also referred to in detail. As an academic, Professor Brady is not slow to criticise the judiciary for certain decisions and his criticism is always

This work is a superb example of how a legal text book should be written and all practitioners and academics owe a great debt to Professor Brady for sharing his erudition with us.

By James C. Brady. Published by Butterworths, 2nd Edition, 1995, 364pp., hardback, IR£45.00. As a former student of Professor Brady, I will always remember his abiding enthusiasm for his subject matter, his clarity of thought, his detailed analysis of statute law and case law, his erudite commentary on judicial decisions and his call for law reform, where appropriate. All these qualities as a lecturer, are in evidence in his second edition of "Succession Law in Ireland" which is essential reading for the general practitioner or Probate specialist. This edition contains a very useful commentary on the decision of the House of Lords in White -v- Jones [1995] 1 All ER 691, where the Court held that solicitors are liable to compensate legatees where omitted from a Will which had not been drafted expeditiously in accordance with the testator's instructions. Professor Brady believes this decision would be followed in Ireland. Professor Brady also analyses a decision of O'Hanlon J. in Lynch -v- Bourke and A.I.B. [1990] IR1*. The decision gives a salutary warning to those who believe that joint accounts are adequate Will substitutes. O 'Hanlon J. applied the doctrine of a resulting trust in a case where a lady died having earlier opened a joint bank account with her niece. The Judge held the monies in the Joint bank account belonged to the deceased lady's estate. However, while following an earlier Supreme Court decision, O'Hanlon J. disputed the correctness of that Supreme Court decision and Professor Brady queries whether a resulting trust should operate in the area of joint bank accounts, if there is no evidence of the

John Costello

* See Supreme Court's decision of 7 November, 1995, which reverses the High Court decision. This became available after the Review was written.

Explorations in Law and History

Irish Legal History Society Discourses, 1988 - 1994. By W.N. Osborough (ed), Dublin, The Irish Academic Press in association with The Irish Legal History Society, 1995, xiv + 193pp., hardback, IR£24.95. Professor W.N. Osborough, Professor of Law at University College, Dublin and Joint Secretary of the Irish Legal History Society in his address at the inauguration of the Society on February 12, 1988 told the story of a workman in a deserted graveyard in County Down engaged in deepening the fading letters on an old tombstone, to preserve a little longer, from total oblivion, the memory of some obscure name. The image was most apt. Law, in the context of the common law and certain statute law, constitutes a government of the living by the dead. Accordingly, we cannot forget the dead and their influence on our jurisprudence. A page of history is often worth many folios of logic. Professor Paul Brand, Judge A.R. Hart, Dr. Colum Kenny and Mr. W.D.H. Sellar, the contributors to this present volume - the fourth in the series published by The Irish Legal History

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