B DRAMA IN FIVE ACTS
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Act!
Scene: North Western Traffic Court. Time: before September 1963.
The Heap family three brothers, one sister and their mother—had an A-licensed haulage business. The father had started the business some years ago, but when he died it had been made into a limited company, Heaps Haulage (Atherton) Ltd.
Unfortunately, family differences developed after the father's death, and two of the brothers parted company from the rest and formed an opposition partnership. Before they took that step in 1963 they laid their plans by acquiring a business carried on by a Mr. Platt, who had a one-vehicle B licence authorizing the carriage of general goods within 12 miles of a base in Eccles, Lancs.
Having set itself up in business, the partnership entered into carrying contracts with two firms who had been customers of the limited company. That work was done under Contract A licence.
A few months later the partnerships surrendered the Contract A on being granted a short-term B pending the hearing of a variation application to add two vehicles to the substantive B licence. When the deputy LA granted the variation, Heaps Haulage Ltd. appealed against the grant.
The appeal was unsuccessful, however. The President of the Tribunal said that the grant "does not inflict any immediate disadvantage upon the appellants. The customers they have lost to the respondents (the partnership) . . . have been lost for good. Even if the variation were not granted, the respondents could go back to Contract A operation".
Act II
Time: December 1964. Same scene: North Western Traffic Court.
As the curtain goes up, Heaps Bros are applying for a renewal of the three-vehicle B licence. The limited company is again on the stage in opposition. After hearing about abortive behind-the-scenes moves towards reconciliation, and saying that he is concerned only with renewal of the licence and not with the family dispute, the deputy LA adjourns the case for one month to enable the limited company to take further legal advice.
At a resumed hearing some weeks later, three major matters emerge. One is that the company makes it clear that it is opposing, not the one vehicle which had been the subject of the take-over from Platt, but only the two ex-Contract A vehicles; it also contends that the partnership had skimmed the cream of its traffic. The second matter is when mention is made of a letter about alleged operations outside the B licence radius, but this proves to be indecisive because the allegations are not specific. The third arises out of the opposition questioning whether renewal is justified, on the alleged ground that erroneous statements had been made by the applicants when the licence was originally granted.
This Act ends, however, with the deputy LA granting the whole renewal.
Act III
Time: August 1965. Same scene, same cast.
This time Heaps Bros. want to add a fourth vehicle, a 31-ton flat, to the now famous B licence. The company allege abstraction of traffic by undercut rates. Applicants counter by saying there is no evidence that the rates are uneconomic. Result: application granted.
Act IV
Time: January 1967.
This can be called a traditional theatrical transformation scene because the identity of one actor has changed from Heaps Bros. to V.H. Transport Ltd. Same scene.
V.H. Transport are applying for four B vehicles as before, the only modification sought being a minor change of base. The application is again granted; Heaps Haulage Ltd. again appeal.
Act V
Time: June/July 1967. The scene has now changed to the court of the Transport Tribunal.
The atmosphere is solemn as the solicitor for the respondents, V.H. Transport Ltd., argues two preliminary points of law. Point one: he says the notice of appeal, signed by Mr. T. Heaps, a director of Heaps Haulage Ltd., was not properly authenticated. There is much thumbing of the Tribunal's Rule Book of 1965 and of the Goods Vehicles (Licences and Prohibitions) Regulations of 1960. Neither the one nor the other throws much light on the subject, but the Tribunal finds this provision in section 36 of the Companies Act, 1948, "a document or proceeding requiring authentication by a company may be signed by a director, secretary or other authorised officer of the company, and need not be under its common seal," and accordingly holds that the notice of appeal was properly authenticated.
Legal point two is even more abstruse. Was the appeal out of time? That is the question. It was sent by recorded delivery addressed to: "The Registrar, Transport Tribunal, Road Haulage Appeals Division, Central Office, London."
The envelope was postmarked "Ather
ton" (Lanes). The date was not clear, but it could have been March 1. But the envelope, for some unexplained reason, also bore the postmark of the Western District Post Office in London and the date March 3. It then appeared -to have been redirected to St. Christopher House, Southwark St., SE1, the address of the Ministry of Transport. The envelope was further redirected and was ultimately received at our (the Tribunal's) Central Office on March 8." The Rule Book is again consulted. So, too, is the Interpretation Act of 1889. And eventually the Tribunal decides to proceed with the case. At last the preliminary points are disposed of and the Tribunal—in its judgment dated July 6 turns to the substance of the case.
First it alludes to the family split and the 1964 appeal mentioned in Act 1. Then come these comments in the judgment. They refer to Mrs. Edna Heaps, who represented the appellants at the hearing: "It became apparent at an early stage in the hearing that Mrs. Heaps was filled with deep personal antipathy against her brothers-in-law and was quite incapable of approaching the case with any degree of the detachment which is so desirable a quality in an advocate. In Mrs. Heaps's eyes everything which had happened since the parting in September 1963 had been a