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Scottish Court of Session Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> Scottish Court of Session Decisions >> Walker v. Trades' Lane Calendering Co. and Others [1865] ScotLR 1_87 (22 December 1865)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/scot/cases/ScotCS/1865/01SLR0087.html
Cite as: [1865] ScotLR 1_87, [1865] SLR 1_87
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SCOTTISH_SLR_Court_of_Session
Page: 87↓
Court of Session Inner House First Division.
v.
Facts:
Held that an appeal taken from the Justices to Quarter Sessions, against a conviction under the Factory Acts, was competent in regard to three of the contraventions charged, but incompetent in regard to a fourth.
This was an action of reduction of a judgment pronounced by the Justices of Peace for Forfarshire, sitting in Quarter Sessions, by which the defenders were assoilzied from a complaint presented against them by the pursuer in his capacity of sub-inspector of factories. The complaint charged the defenders with contravening the Factory Acts, in so far as (1) they employed at their works a young person under sixteen years of age, without having previously registered his name in the register kept for the purpose; (2) They employed him for more than nine hours in the day, without having obtained for him a surgical certificate; (3) They employed fifteen young persons named, after six o'clock in the evening; and (4) They employed the said young persons betwixt half-past eight o'clock in the evening and half-past five o'clock in the morning. The Justices sitting in Petty Sessions convicted the defenders, and fined them in £3, 3s. for the first offence, £2 for the second, £1 for each of the fifteen young persons referred to in the third charge, and £2 for each of the fifteen young persons referred to in the fourth charge, said penalties amounting in aggregate to £50, 3s. The defenders appealed to the Quarter Sessions, who quashed the conviction.
The ground of the present action of reduction was that the appeal to the Quarter Sessions was incompetent. The pursuer founded upon sec. 69 of 7th Vict., cap. 15. which declares “that no appeal shall be allowed against any conviction under this Act, except for an offence punishable at discretion, or when the penalty awarded shall be more than £3;” and he contended that each offence charged must be considered separately, and not only so, but that each young person must be held to constitute a separate offence, so that there were 32 offences charged, and that in this view the penalty awarded for each (except in the case of the first charge) must be held to be less than £3 in the sense of the statute. It was not disputed by the pursuer that if the appeal to the Quarter Sessions was competently taken, the judgment pronounced was not reviewable by the Court of Session.
The Lord Ordinary (Kinloch) found that the appeal was competently taken. The whole offences were charged in one complaint as committed at the same time and the same place, and the penalties were all adjudged in one conviction. He therefore assoilzied the defenders, and the pursuer reclaimed.
The Lord President said—The expressions of the statute here are not very clear, nor is the language of the conviction by the justices. The substance of the question we have to decide is whether the conviction was appealable to the Quarter Sessions; and within that there is another question, whether part of it was appealable, and part was not. It is admitted on both sides that as regards the offence in respect of which a penalty of three guineas was imposed, the conviction was appealable, the sum awarded being above £3. It was contended by the pursuer that in all other respects the conviction was not appealable. That depends on the construction of sec. 69 of the Act. One of the offences of which the defenders were convicted was a contravention of a statute in respect of which a penalty of only £2 was imposed, and the offences charged in the third and fourth counts, it is said, constitute thirty separate offences, being in each case one for each of the fifteen boys who were employed. The words of the conviction are, in the one case, the sum of £1, and in the other the sum of £2 of penalty for each of the boys. The defenders contend that the aggregate sum awarded is the amount of the penalty, or otherwise that the penalties awarded under the third and fourth charges amount to £15 and £30 respectively, and that the appeal in regard to them was therefore competent. The offences charged are stated in the complaint as four different offences; they are contraventions of different statutes, and in their own nature they are different transgressions. They are substantially different cases. I have therefore difficulty in looking upon the aggregate sum as one penalty. I think that while the first charge was appealable, the second, where the penalty was only £2, was not. In regard to the third and fourth charges, it appears to me that, looking to the way the pursuer charged the offences in his complaint, and the terms in which he took the conviction, he has put it in the defender's power to appeal. In each case the employing of the whole 15 boys is set forth as one offence, and the justices have so dealt with it. My opinion, therefore, is that in regard to these charges the appeal was competent.
The other Judges concurred—Lord
The Court therefore recalled Lord Kinloch's interlocutor, reduced the judgment of the Quarter Sessions to the extent of the £2 penalty, and quoad ultra assoilzied the defenders with expenses, subject to modification.
Counsel for Pursuer—The Lord Advocate and Mr Alexander Moncrieff. Agent— Mr Andrew Murray. W.S.
Counsel for Defenders—The Solicitor-General and Mr Gifford. Agent— Mr L. M. Macara, W.S.