Roulston v Kerlin

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 13 November 1907
• Date: 13 November 1907
• Court: Court of Appeal (Ireland)

Roulston

and

Kerlin (1).

Appeal.

CASES

DETERMINED BY

THE KING'S BENCH DIVISION

OF

THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN IRELAND,

AND ON APPEAL THEREFROM IN

THE COURT OF APPEAL,

AND BY

THE COURT FOR CROWN CASES RESERVED.

1908.

Parliament — Franchise — Inhabitant occupier — Occupation under a letting void at law.

Held, that the claimant was entitled to the franchise.

Glenn v. Brennan (29 Ir. L. T. R. 79) commented on and explained.

Appeal from the Assistant Revising Barrister for Tyrone.

The following facts were proved:—

John Kerlin, father of the claimant, was tenant of a holding to which the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, applied, and on the

said holding was a dwelling-house occupied by the said tenant until some time before the commencement of the statutory qualifying period on the 20th July, 1906, as the dwelling-house of the farm. Some time before the said date the said John Kerlin let to his son, the claimant, a part of the said dwelling-house; and the claimant occupied the said part as tenant to his father during the qualifying period, the said dwelling-houses (formerly one) being occupied by the father and son respectively as two distinct and separate dwelling-houses. There was no other dwelling-house upon the farm, and the claimant earned his living on the farm as a labourer to his father, the said John Kerlin, and paid him weekly rent as tenant of that part of the dwelling-house, in which he, the claimant, separately lived.

The landlord of the said holding had not consented in writing to the sub-letting by the tenant to the claimant.

It was contended on behalf of the objector that the letting to the claimant was consequently void under sect. 2 of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, and that the claimant was not entitled to the franchise.

The Revising Barrister held as a fact that, apart from the effect of the above objection, the claimant had in every respect proved his claim as an inhabitant occupier; and as to the objection, he held that the facts brought the case within the principle of the decision of Glenn v. Brennan(1) as contrasted with Riddall v. Mullan(2), and admitted the claim of the said George Kerlin.

John Gordon, K.C., and Babington, for the appellant:—

Under sect. 2 of the Land Law Act of 1881, all sub-lettings of holdings, to which the Act applies, without the consent of the landlord in writing, are absolutely void: Meares v. Redmond(3). The idea seems to have prevailed at one time that a sub-letting of that nature was voidable only, and not void, but that view was put an end to by Fogarty v. Shanahan(4). The same conclusion was arrived at under the...