White, The People (Attorney General) fence

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 24 July 1947
• Date: 24 July 1947
• Court: High Court

White v. Freeman

SOLOMON WHITE

Plaintiff

and

THOMAS FREEMAN

Defendant.

Landlord and tenant - Rent Restriction Acts - Action for recovery of possession - Premises consisting of a yard without permanent buildings - Whether controlled premises - Rent Restrictions Act, 1946 (No. 4 of 1946), s. 3,sub-s. 1.

Sect. 3, sub-s. 1, of the Rent Restrictions Act, 1946, provides that, subject to certain specified exceptions "this Act applies to every premises." Among the exceptions are "premises erected after . . . the 7th May, 1941."

The defendant was weekly tenant of a yard which, when let to him, had no buildings thereon, but upon which he had, subsequent to the 7th May, 1941, erected concrete sheds and pig-sties. In an action for ejectment for overholding brought by his landlord, the defendant claimed the protection of s. 37 of the Rent Restrictions Act, 1946.

Held that, having regard to the context and to the history of the law leading up to the passing of the Act of 1946, that Act had no application to lands with no buildings thereon, and accordingly the tenant's defence failed.

Appeal from the Circuit Court.

The defendant, who was weekly tenant from the plaintiff of a yard at the rere of Nos. 74 and 75 Aungier Street, in the City of Dublin, appealed from a decision of the Dublin Circuit Court Judge (Judge Shannon) awarding the plaintiff a decree in ejectment in respect of the said yard. The defendant had been let into possession of the yard in 1942, by the plaintiff's predecessor in title, as a weekly tenant. There was no written tenancy agreement. When the defendant took the premises they consisted of a cobbled yard, with the ruined walls of an old coach-house thereon, approached from the street by a covered way. There was a water supply to the yard and a drain or sewer leading from the yard to the street. The defendant kept pigs and erected, in the yard, several pig-sties, with concrete walls and corrugated-iron roofs, and an open-fronted shed or garage where he kept a motor taxi-cab. The yard was surrounded by the walls of adjoining buildings and yards.

The plaintiff, having served a notice to quit, brought ejectment proceedings in the Dublin Circuit Court. The defendant claimed the protection of s. 37 of the Rent Restrictions Act, 1946, but Judge Shannon, while indicating that, in his own view, that Act applied to the premises, held that in accordance with the practice of the Dublin Circuit Court he must follow the decision of Mr. Justice Davitt (then Judge Davitt) in Bartlett v. Mooney(1), and accordingly he gave the plaintiff a decree for possession.

The defendant appealed to the High Court.

Cur. adv. vult.

Gavan Duffy P. :—

This is an appeal from a decree of ejectment, whereby the plaintiff, as landlord, is to recover possession from the defendant, a weekly tenant, of a yard, surrounded by the walls of buildings, in the City of Dublin; one may fairly conjecture that the yard was, many years ago, part of a coach-house belonging to one of the buildings, of which, as a holding, it is now independent. The valuation is £8. The defendant took the yard, and only the yard, about three and a half years ago and he...