United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions

Subject_Provisional Order — Locus standi — Abandonment of Railway Undertaking Authorised by Act of Parliament — Provisional Order for Release of Sum Deposited under Penalty Clause — Opposition by Party who Opposed Act and now Claimed Expenses of Opposition — Locus standi Refused. Headnote:

The object of this Order was to authorise the abandonment of the construction of the railway and works authorised by the Motherwell and Bellshill Railway Act 1900, and to release certain deposit-funds, inter alia, a sum of £10,000, which under the Act of 1900 was to be paid by the promoters to the burgh of Motherwell in the event of their failing to carry out their undertaking. It was proposed in the filled-up Order laid before the Commissioners to repay and refund to the promoters £5000, and that the remaining £5000 should become the property of the Corporation of Motherwell, to be applied by the Corporation, with the approval of the Secretary of Scotland, for the benefit of the burgh.

The North British Railway Company opposed the Provisional Order.

In 1900, in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords, they had opposed the Bill and had been partially successful in a question relating to running powers. They now contended that the Provisional Order should not be passed and the promoters refunded until provision had been made for payment by the promoters of the expenses incurred by the North British Railway Company in opposing the Bill of 1900.

The promoters objected to the locus standi of the objectors, arguing that the proposed Order neither infringed upon or deprived the objectors of any of their legal rights.

Page: 891↓

They were making an incompetent attempt to recover costs— Harrow, Edgware, and London Railway Bill, 1 Clifford & Rickard, p. 83; Dublin, &c., Railway Bill, 1 Clifford & Rickard, p. 11; London Central Railway (Abandonment) Bill, 1 Clifford & Rickard, p. 170, 2 Saunders & Austin, p. 126.

The objectors argued that the insertion of the penalty clauses in the Bill of 1900 showed that there was an implied contract between the promoters and the North British Railway Company that in the event of the former abandoning their scheme the latter should obtain from the former the costs of opposing the Bill, and that as the present Provisional Order threatened their rights under that implied contract, they had a locus standi.

The Committee unanimously refused a locus.