Estates case law Flashcards
Hill v Tupper
The law defines estates, not private parties (distinction with contract).
(Pollock CB)
– Hill’s cause of action was not against Tupper in trespass to easement but against the Canal Company in breach of contract.
– The law does not recognise a property right consisting of an ‘exclusive right to operate pleasure boats’.
Walsingham’s case
Estates are diversities of time.
Williams v Williams
Facts
* The deceased’s mistress claimed for the cost of cremating the deceased’s body in Milan according to the directions expressed in his will.
Issue
* Whether a testator’s wish as to how his body will be disposed is legally enforceable.
Held: “It follows that a man cannot by will dispose of his dead body […] I asked for any authority in conflict with these cases, but none was produced.”
The Hamuth case
Facts: dispute as to who the legal executor was. Hospital asked what to do with the body.
Who has the best right to make arrangements for the disposal of the body?
Held: “at common law it is the duty of a householder under whose roof a person has died to make arrangements for the dignified and decent burial of the deceased.”
Hospital therefore had full discretion as to how to dispose of the body.
R v Kelly
–> Shows influence of Lockean theory; cadaver becomes property when there is labour exerted upon it. (Labour + resources = ownership)
–> Salient fact: these body parts had in fact been prepared as anatomical specimens. Distinguished Williams v Williams; upheld conviction of theft.
Victoria Park Racing v Taylor
(Dixon J). Majority 3-2.
The case rejected the notion of quasi-property recently adopted in the USA.
““If English law had followed the course of development that has recently taken place in the United States, the “broadcasting rights” in respect of the races might have been protected as part of the quasi-property created by the enterprise, organization and labour of the plaintiff “
But courts of equity have not in British jurisdictions thrown the protection of an injunction around all the intangible elements of value [pure intangibles–a term coined after this case]
This is sufficiently evidenced by the history of the law of copyright and by the fact that the exclusive right to invention, trade marks, designs, trade name and reputation are dealt with in English law as special heads of protected interests and not under a wide generalization.”
–> No propriety right in spectacle–distinguishes property from copyright. Private vs property law. Property law more about public interest and collective ideas of the common good. Business owners must patent their work themselves. Onus is on them for ensuring their own privacy.
–> Dixon J noted the importance of the case with the advent of television.
–> Mere competition is not actionable.
–> No “general right of privacy exists.” And property rights are general (exercisable against the whole community)
Asher v Whitlock
Mort d’Ancestor type case. Widow lost the bequest of the conditional fee simple when she married. Remaining new husband therefore had no right to the property: original daughter did.
Lysaght v Royse
Henry Royce purported to deal with a fee simple when all that he had was a lease. Negligent solicitor. Lease is not a chattel or a freehold interest, it’s a chattel real.
Held: For Lysaght’s claim to work, he must attack the 1726 conveyance and say that it is bad. He is claiming that Henry Royce is dealing in something that he does not have. Yet if the 1726 document is bad, the entire line of title is bad. Lysaght cannot approbate and reprobate.
