Requisitioning Vehicle Already Hired to the Crown : Appeal Fails
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WITHOUT calling on the Attorney General (Sir Donald Somervell, K.C.), representing the Crown, the Court of Appeal on Friday of last week dismissed, with costs, the appeal of Mr. Robert Lane, of Lane's Garage, Catterick, Yorkshire, from the judgment of Mr. Justice Farwell, on March 16 last, dismissing his claim for a declaration that the Minister of War Transport acted ultra vires in requisitioning from him a lorry already in the Crown's possession under a contract of hire. The case was reported in our issue dated March 20.
Mr. Justice Farwell held that the notice of requisition put an end to the hiring contract, and that there was nothing in the emergency legislation that prevented the Crown from taking the action it did.
Mr: G. R. F. Morris, for Mr. Lane, said the notice to requisition was served by virtue of Defence Regulation 53, but he contended that that regulation related only to notices to requisition served under the Air Navigation and Telegraph Acts. Where there was an Act or regulation which expressly invaded private, rights the limits of that invasion must be defined with unmis takable clarity. This regulation, he submitted, was not concerned with private commercial agreements with the Crown, but with property coming only under the Acts which he mentioned,
The Master of the Rolls gave judgment, dismissing the appeal. What, he said, was the position with regard to this vehicle? When the hiring con tract was terminated, as it was by notice t6 requisition, the vehicle
remained in the possession of the Crown, and the Crown's sole duty at that moment was to hand the vehicle back to the owner. But Mr. Morris did not feel able to argue that before a valid notice to requisition cotild be served the Crown should hand the vehicle back and at once requisition it, so that at the actual moment of requisition it might be said to be in its owner's possession. If they treated the case as though a notice, to terminate the hiring contract was served 10 minutes before service of the notice to requisition, it was impossible to say that the requisition notice would be bad unless in the 10-minutes interval the vehicle was returned to its owner.
The effect would be that on the termination of the hiring contract, the Crown would have no right to do anything with the vehicle save by returning it. There was no substance in the appellant's complaint as to the conduct of the authorities, and the judgment of Mr. Justice Farwell was right.
Lords Justice Luxmoore and Goddard agreed.