Chaine-Nickson v Bank of Ireland

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1976
• Date: 01 January 1976
• Docket Number: [1974 No. 15 Sp.]
• Court: High Court

Chaine-Nickson v. Bank of Ireland

Augustus Terence Chaine-Nickson

Plaintiff

and

The Bank of Ireland, Charles Anthony Brett and Robert Cornwall Lewis-Crosby

Defendants

[1974 No. 15 Sp.]

High Court

Trusts - Trustee - Duty - Furnish accounts and information - Discretionary trust - Rights of potential beneficiary.

The plaintiff was one of a class of persons who were the potential beneficiaries named in a settlement by which certain property was vested in the defendants as trustees upon the discretionary trusts therein declared. At the hearing in the High court of a special summons in which the plaintiff claimed an order directing the defendants to give him particulars of certain matters relating to the administration of the trust property, it was

Held by Kenny J., in granting the relief sought, 1, that the plaintiff was entitled at his expense to be furnished by the defendants with copies of the trust accounts since 1956, and the balance sheets and profit and loss accounts of a private company in which the trust funds had been invested.

2. That the plaintiff was entitled to be informed by the defendants of the names of persons residing on any land purchased by the trustees, and of the outgoings of such land that had been paid out of the trust funds.

Moore v. McGlynn [1894] 1 I.R. 74 considered.

Special Summons.

The plaintiff was a potential beneficiary under a discretionary trust created by an indenture dated the 2nd March, 1956, and the defendants were the trustees of the trust property. On the 22nd January, 1974, the plaintiff issued a summons in which he claimed an order directing the defendants to give him particulars of (a) the real and personal property then vested in the defendants as such trustees; (b) the dealings of the defendants as such trustees with the capital and income of the trust property since the 1st January, 1966, and (c) the payments of capital and income made by the defendants as such trustees from the trust property since the 1st January, 1966, to the various beneficiaries named in the said indenture.

The order made by the High Court pursuant to the judgment of Kenny J., infra, was in the following terms:— "The Court doth declare that the plaintiff as a potential beneficiary under the above-mentioned settlement . . . is entitled at his expense to be furnished by the defendants as trustees of the said settlement with copies of the trust accounts relating to that settlement since 1956 and the balance sheets and profit and loss accounts of Muckmore Investments since the incorporation of that company and the Court doth further declare that the plaintiff is entitled to be informed by the defendants of the names of the persons residing on any landed property purchased by the trustees and of the outgoings in connection with it paid out of the trust funds . . ."

The proceedings were heard by Kenny J. on the 21st February, 1975.

Cur. adv. vult.

Kenny J. 24th April, 1975

By a settlement made on the 2nd March, 1956, between Augustus Alexander Chaine-Nickson (the settlor) of the one part and Rachel Chaine-Nickson, Charles Anthony Brett and Robert Cornwall Lewis-Crosby (therein called the Trustees) of the other part the settlor, who had paid £40,000 to the trustees, declared that they were to hold that sum upon trust to invest it in their unrestrained discretion as if they were the beneficial owners of it and "upon trust to pay, divide or apply the whole or such part (if any) of the income and capital respectively thereof as they shall from time to time in their absolute and uncontrolled discretion think fit between or for the support, benefit, maintenance or education or otherwise of all or any one or more to the exclusion of the other or others of the members of the Family and any future husband and any other child or children of Denys Sophia Pain [a daughter of the settlor] and any wife and child or children of Augustus Terence Chaine-Nickson [the plaintiff]."The members of the Family were defined as the settlor's wife, Rachel Halley Chaine-Nickson, his daughter, Denys...