"PLYING FOR HIRE" AGAIN BEFORE THE COURTS.
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Booking Passengers and Taking Fares After the Moment of Starting Held Not to be "Antecedent Contracts."
• By a Barrister-at-Law.
T" question of motor coaChes which ply for hire . within a district for which they are not licensed has been again before the High Court, and on this occasion the matter has -arisen in connection with the motor coaches of Greyhound Motors, Ltd., a company in the West of England and engaged, among other things, in running unitor coaches between London and Bristol.
The proceedings in the case were commenced under the London Cab and Stage Carriage Act, 1907. The motor coaches inquestion belonged to a limited company who carried on business at Bristol and were the owners of a number of motor coaches conveying passengers between that place and London, maintaining, in connection with such service, branch offices at Hammersmith and Hounslow, within the Metropolitan Police district.
Notice, Issue and Exchange of Tickets.
It appeared that the company put up a poster in the window of their Hammersmith °Mee which gave notice that London passengers must have tickets 10 minutes before their motor omnibus reached the booking office, and that on a day in May last a police officer paid for and obtained at the office a cardboard ticket which entitled him to travel in the omnibus to Slough. At that precise moment no motor coach was there which belonged to the company, but inside half an hour a motor coach of the company arrived. The police officer referred to boarded it with another passenger, and the coach then drove away to another Hammersmith office of the company, where three other. passengers joined it. It stopped, on its way to Hounslow, at Chiswick and Brentford, although no other passengers boarded it there. The conductor of the coach, between Hammersmith and Chiswick, took from the passengers the tickets which they had got at the company's office and gave them paper tickets in exchange for the tickets which they held.
Journey Cancelled if Insufficient Bookings.
On the same day it also appeared that two more police officers obtained at the company's Hounslow office tickets entitling them to travel in the company's omnibus from that place to Maidenhead. At the actual moment when they took these tickets the omnibus had not reached the Hounslow office, but it arrived in about 20 minutes and was boarded by the two police. officers and two otherpassengers. In the omnibus there were already the police ,officer who had got in at Hammersmith and the other four passengers previously mentioned. It then proceeded to Slough, the conductor taking the tickets obtained at the Hounslow office and exchanging them for paper tickets as before. When the omnibus arrived at Colebrook, between Hounslow and Slough, if three police officers told the driver and the conductor who they were, and there left the omnibus, which then 'continued its journey. The motor coach in question was not licensed to ply for hire within the Metropolitan Police district, the company's offices were in telephonic communication, and it appeared that if the bookings were not sufficient a. journey would be cancelled.
Upon an information being laid under the Act men
tioned the stipendiary magistrate was of opinion that there had been solicitation both before and after the motor coach left the office at Hammersmith by means of posters, and that there were no real antecedent contracts in respect of the police officers. He held that there had been a plying for hire within the Metropolitan Police .district and convicted and inflicted a fine accordingly. The appeal from this, decision came before the Lord Chief Justice and two other judges just recently in the King's Bench Division by way of -a case stated.
A Former Lord Chief Justice on "Plying for Hire."
It is true that in some instances the facts have been such as to leave the ease almost on the border line, but that obviously was not the position on the present occasion. The distinction will be .readily understood if a case is mentioned which came before the courts in 1922 (Sales v. Lake, 1922, I K.B.). In that case the passengers bought their tickets before the vehicle had started out on its journey. In fact, it was not until the number of passengers travelling had been ascertained that the vehicle was hired. The Magistrate there held that there was no plying for hire, because no member of the public could have obtained a seat in the vehicle at any of the places at which it stopped in London without first having taken a ticket elsewhere before the vehicle started on its journey. Even in that particular case, the then Lord Chief Justice said that if there had been any empty seats for which the driver was prepared to take in casual passengers during the journey he would have been plying for hire.
The Difference -Between the Two Cases.
That case was referred to and discussed in the High Court on this occasion. The company, the present appellants, contended that their case was covered by it, but the Lord Chief Justice observed that a comparison of the two cases showed how misleading a phrase might be if its meaning was not examined. His lordship pointed out that the phrase in the present instance was "antecedent contract" to carry, but proceeded to ask "antecedent to what?" The learned judge then referred to the fact that in the 1922 case the passengers had bought their tickets before the departure of the vehicle on its journey and mentioned the other determining points in that case. In his lordship's opinion the present case seemed to be the exact opposite of the case decided in 1922. Here, the learned judge remarked, the vehicle started from Hammersmith Road at 9 a.m., it left Brentford at 9.20 a.m., Hounslow at 9.30 a.m., and Colnbrook at 9.55 a.m. It was, his lordship continued, "obviously contemplated that it might leave Hammersmith Road with vacant places in it will& might be filled at Brentford, Hounslow and CoMbrook by persons who not only had not reserved accommodation before 9 a.m., but who might not even have made up their minds to take a journey that day until, in the case of those joining the onmihusd at Colnbrook, just before 10 o'clock, while the omnibus was performing the first part of its journey." It was held by the court that the stipendiary magistrate had before him ample material to justify his coming to the conclusion to which he had come, and the appeal was accordingly dismissed with costs.