Pigott, deceased; Gage and Roper v Pigott and De Genner

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

C. A.,

Pigott, deceased; Gage and Roper

and

Pigott and De Genner

Settled Lands - Tenant for life unimpeachable for waste -Compensation invested upon trusts of settlement - Equitable waste.

The Home-grown Timber Committee acting under the powers conferred by the Defence of the Realm (Consolidation) Regulations, 1914, as amended by an Order in Council of April 12th, 1916, entered upon settled lands the tenant for life of which was unimpeachable for waste, felled and took away, for military purposes, ornamental trees growing in the demesne and paid to the trustees £630 by way of compensation. The tenant for life in possession claimed to be entitled to the money absolutely. The trustees and the tenants in remainder claimed that it should be treated as capital money, and invested and held upon the trusts of the settlement: —Held, by the Master of the Rolls, that at the moment of severance the legal property in the trees passed to the Crown; and that the trustees were bound to invest the compensation money, and to hold the investment to the uses and upon the trusts of the settlement: —Held, by the Court of Appeal (1) (affirming the decision of O'Connor, M.R.), that the money given by way of compensation was paid for damage to the inheritance, and that it must be applied by the trustees as part of the corpus of the estate. Held also, that the principle of the decisions by which windfalls or trees felled by trespassers become the property of the tenant for life, unimpeachable for waste, is not applicable where trees are severed, carried away, and appropriated by the act of an...