LICENSING
Page 35
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These C-licensed Operators CASEBOOK
Can be Paid Lord Chief Justice
AN IMPORTANT AND CONTROVERSIAL ISSUE
WHETHER or not the Metropolitan Licensing Authority, Mr. D. L R. Muir, decides to take the matter to the House of Lords—and I gather that no final decision has yet been made about this—the recent ruling of the Queen's Bench Divisional Court on the question of the carriage of goods on C-licensed vehicles for hire and reward will lead to a lot of controversy between professional hauliers and their C-licensed counterparts.
The case I am discussing is that of Hammond (an officer of the Ministry of Transport, Metropolitan traffic area) v. Hall and Ham River Ltd., the nationallyknown concern whose headquarters are in Croydon, Surrey. As reported in The Commercial Motor on December 4, Lord Parker, the Lord Chief Justice, and two brother appeal judges ruled that it does not matter whether an operator is paid to carry .goods in a C-licensed vehicle, providing the goods being carried are to be used for or in connection with that operator's business. And, as the matter stands now, there could be many hundreds of operators—especially those who deal in sand and gravel—throughout the country who have gone to the trouble of getting, and paying for, B licences who could be carrying goods quite legally under a C licence,
Crown Appeal Dismissed
The appeal judges unanimously dismissed an appeal by the Crown which, by way of a ease stated, arose from a decision of the Middlesex Justices sitting at Feltham. The justices had, on April 28, dismissed an information laid by the traffic examiner which alleged that a vehicle belonging to Hall and Ham River had carried goods on -December 20 last year contrary to the conditions of a C licence.
According to the evidence, Hall and Ham River were excavating a pit at Bedfont, the freehold of which was owned by them. The conditions of the planning permission by which they were excavating the pit stipulated they had to fill in the pit with materials of which the local authority approved.
Yeomans Ltd.—a firm of building contractors who were building on an adjacent site—were only too anxious to be rid of their rubble from the site. They sold this to Hall and Ham River for 8s, fid. a cu. yd. The ownership of the rubble—according to Lord Parker when he gave judgment—passed to the respondent company as soon as the rubbish was loaded on to its lorries.
Justices' Conclusion The Middlesex Justices came to the conclusion that the rubble was used by the respondent in the course of its business and was lawfully carried under the terms of the C licence, and it was this judgment that Mr. Muir, through his officer, was disputing. In his judgment, Lord Parker said that the real question in the case was the interpretation of the exemption in Section 164(5)(a) of the 1960 Road Traffic Act which stated that goods carried in a vehicle shall not be deemed "to be carried for hire or reward if (a) they are goods sold, used or let on hire or hire purchase, in the course of a trade or business carried on by the person using the vehicle, and are being delivered or collected by him ".
Cases Cited He cited the case of Carpenter v. Lusty and Sons Ltd. in which the previous Lord Chief Justice, Lord Goddard, had decided that carriers who collected and packed goods and then delivered them to the wharf, rather than back to the exporters, had not committed a breach of their C licence. In that case it was clear that the delivery to the wharf arose out of the operator's business as export packers and shippers. "Could it be said that the 8s. 6d. per cu. yd. was payment to the respondent acting as carriers which was not referable to their business?" Lord Parker asked.
He continued by referring to an unreported case, Corbett and Miller v. Barham where the facts were very similar to those in the Hall and Ham River ease. In Corbett and Miller v. Barham the contractors bought ballast by the cu. yd. in order to fill a pond in the course of their business. In that case, too, Lord Goddard had held that notwithstanding that the goods had been collected by the contractors for their use in their business, it was not wholly referable to their business and was in that case a breach of the conditions of their C licence.
Reality of the Situation In the Hall and Ham River ease. Lord Parker went on, one had to look at the reality of the situation, and it was clear that the rubbish from the building site was to be used for the purposes of the respondent's business. It was not relevant that Yeomans" Ltd. paid the respondent to cart the spoil away. Unlike the Corbett and Miller case, Hall and Ham River had not committed a breach of their C licence.
In Licensing Casebook on May 8 I suggested that this was not merely a technical point but was a matter of economy and convenience to Hall and Ham River. Mr. Richard Yorke, the barrister who represented the company before the Divisional Court. told the court that his clients would have been involved to the extent of £12,500 if the appeal Judges had decided the case against Hall and Ham River. There will be some tipper men who carry on business purely as hauliers who will hope that Mr. Muir takes the battle a stage further—to the House of Lords. It is an importa'nt matter and, as I stated earlier, a controversial one.