McDaid v Milford Rural District Council

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1919
• Date: 01 January 1919
• Court: Court of Appeal (Ireland)

K. B. D., App.,

M'Daid

and

Milford Rural District Council

Temporary letting of plot to a person not an agricultural labourer -Breach of statutory duty - Preferential right -Labourer's right of action - Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1886, s. 15 - Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1906, s. 29.

A rural district council made an improvement scheme under the Labourers Acts based upon a representation signed by, or on behalf of, agricultural labourers, amongst whom was the plaintiff, whose representation was in respect of a cottage and about an acre of land. Regulations in pursuance of s. 29 of the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1906, were framed and adopted by the council. Pending the erection of the cottage, the council, acting under s. 15 of the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1886, made a temporary letting of the plot to a farmer who had not signed a representation, whereupon the plaintiff claimed damages on the ground that they were bound to give him a preference. Held, by the King's Bench Division (Sir James Campbell, C.J., and Dodd, J.) (following Tevlin v. Lisnaskea Rural District Council, [1914] 2 I. R. 15), that a temporary letting under s. 15 of the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1886, is a letting of an allotment within s. 29 of the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1906, and that the plaintiff was entitled to a preferential right thereto:—Held by the Court of Appeal, reversing the King's Bench Division, that the preferential right given by s. 29 of the Act of 1906 applies only to the letting of a cottage and plot as one entity, and does not apply to a temporary letting under s. 15 of the Act of 1886...