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England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions >> Morris v Beaconsfield Motors [2001] EWCA Civ 1322 (24 June 2001) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2001/1322.html Cite as: [2001] EWCA Civ 1322 |
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COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM BRIGHTON COUNTY COURT
(HER HONOUR JUDGE COATES)
Strand London WC2 Tuesday, 24th June 2001 |
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B e f o r e :
and
MR JUSTICE RIMER
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MALCOLM MORRIS | ||
- v - | ||
BEACONSFIELD MOTORS |
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Smith Bernal Reporting Limited
180 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2HD
Telephone No: 0171-421 4040 Fax No: 0171-831 8838
(Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
MR AND MRS CROFT, appeared in person.
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Crown Copyright ©
Tuesday, 24 July 2001
"The amount payable by you prior to service of this notice was £688.30 for repair work and £3,392 for storage charges. The storage charges are £8 per day and the said sum relates to 424 days as at 10th March 1999, continuing thereafter at the same daily rate.
This notice is given pursuant to the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act, 1977. Payment in full must be made or the sale will be effected accordingly."
"Judgment for the Defendant [that is Beaconsfield Motors]
(a) £623.30 in respect of outstanding costs of repairs
(b) £105.00 in respect of cost of retaining mark
(c) £3,216.00 damages in respect of storage charges from 11th March 1999 to date to be paid by the 29th May 2000.
If the judgment is not paid by that date
1. Alvis Car and Registration No 770-8VC to be sold at the best price reasonably obtainable.
2. Proceeds to be applied:
(i) towards costs of sale then
(ii) towards judgment debt then
(iii) paid into court to the credit of the Claimant."
"The claimant raises a point of law as to liability for storage charges on the basis that the goods were still purportedly [held] under a lien. Save for this issue the appeal is as to issues of fact and is therefore liable to be struck out at the hearing."
"The appeal is brought today on the basis of whether or not, legally, it is right to order sums for storage to be part of the sums recovered by means of exercising of the lien and sale. Mr Morris has produced for me today Chitty on Contracts [1994] edition, p145, paragraph 32/064 which sets out the provisions in respect of a lien of a worker. What that says inter alia is that the lien covers the sum due for materials supplied and work performed on the chattel, but not charges for warehousing and storage even during the period of the lien. Therefore, to allow that effectively to happen, which is what has happened as the result of the judgment, I accept, is an appeal point and that would be wrong."
"That is not an end of the matter, and I make it perfectly clear, because they still have a judgment for £3,392 storage charges, which they can pursue against Mr Morris and no doubt they will. That has not gone out of the window."
"It is clear that, not only is this a second tier appeal, but it is also an appeal from the Small Claims Court, where the right to appeal is limited, for relevent purposes, to points of law. This does seem to me to be a point of law which there are compelling reasons to hear, because it seems at first blush as though the courts below might have been wrong about it.
For those reasons, therefore, I give Mr Morris permission to appeal. I am not intending to limit that permission in any way: that is to say, Mr Morris should be entitled to pursue his appeal as it was made to the district judge. That was a document that Mr Morris could not refer me to today; hence I have expressed my judgment in the way that I have."
"Where a worker is to be paid for work done on a chattel bailed to him, he has at common law, after completion of the work a lien on the chattel for the remuneration due to him; hence he may refuse to return the chattel until he is paid. An express or implied term of the contract, especially one relating to credit, may, however, exclude such a lien. The lien covers the sum due for materials supplied and work performed on the chattel but not charges for warehousing or storage even during the period of the lien. There is no lien in common law for the maintenance of the chattel in its original condition without improvement. The lien is lost by waiver or by the worker relinquishing possession of the chattel but the mere taking of security for the debt does not discharge the lien unless it is inconsistent with the existence of the lien."
"My Lords, the extent to which any possessory lien that a salvor would be entitled to exercise at common law is capable of surviving or is modified by provision of clauses 4 and 5 of Lloyds Open Form raises difficult and hitherto undecided questions of law into which in my view it is not necessary for the House to enter in the instant case, and it would be unwise for your Lordships to attempt to do so. The only reason why the cargo owner upon the failure of its main propositions sought by the subsidiary proposition to reach some tabula in naufragio juiciobile was in order to avail itself of the principle which it contended was laid down by this House in Somes v Directors of British Empire Shipping Company, to the effect that where a person entitled to a possessory lien over goods incurs expenses in maintaining possession of them, in the exercise of his right of lien, and preserving in the meantime their value as security for the owner's indebtedness to him, he cannot recover such expenses from the owner. That case is in my view authority for the proposition that where a lienee remains in possession of goods in the exercise of his right of lien only, ( ie one who has refused a demand by the lienor for re-delivery of the goods with which, in the absence of the lien, the lienee would be under a legal obligation to comply) he cannot recover from the lienor loss or expenses incurred by him exclusively for his own benefit in maintaining his security as lienee and from which the lienor derives no benefit as owner of the goods. I would not seek to suggest that this authority has become out-dated for the proposition that it was then laid down, but I would deny that it is authority for anything more, and in particular for the further proposition that expenditure necessary for the preservation of the goods from deterioration upon which the owner does derive benefit is irrecoverable, where such expenditure is made by the bailee at that time before possession of the goods has been demanded of him by the owner and his only right to retain lawful possession of them thereafter rests upon his own election to continue in possession after such demand in the exercise of the rights of that lienee."