United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions

Lord Chancellor (Loreburn)—The question here is one of the construction to be placed upon the Statute of Frauds, which, after the lapse of 200 years and more, seems still to be open to some question.

Mr Atkin, on behalf of the appellant, quoted authorities to show that the words of the Act deal only with agreements which cannot be performed by either party within a year. On the other hand, there is a chain of authorities since 1829, either approving or reaffirming the earlier decisions upon which the Court of Appeal relied, which undoubtedly support in a direct way the conclusion at which they have arrived. I think that these two series of decisions can both be reconciled, or rather, I ought to say, can both be applied by regarding the one as an exception to the other.

If you are to look at the words of this statute without any previous guidance at all, to my mind either construction is possible as a matter of language and pure interpretation of the meaning of language. But I agree with Vaughan-Williams, L.J., that it is not right, even for this House, to re-open points of construction upon ambiguous language which have been settled for a long period of years; and I advise your Lordships to decide this case upon that ground. To my mind, when doubtful words in a statute have for a long period been decided in a particular sense, we ought not to re-open the matter if we can help it. The doctrine Interest reipublicæ ut sit finis litium ought in such a case to apply.

Lord Alverstone—I entirely agree with the motion made by the Lord Chancellor.

It seems to me that it is quite impossible in the present day to deal with this statute as though we were considering it for the first time. It has been said that the view taken by tbe Court of Appeal, which your Lordships are prepared to indorse, is not logical, having regard to certain exceptions founded upon Peter v. Compton ( 1694, Skinner 353). One has had to think over this point a good many times in the course of one's legal career, and it seems to me, and it has always seemed to me, that the two things can stand together. I put it in this way—The one class of cases says that if there is no mention of time, and the time is uncertain, the agreement is not within the statute. The other class of cases decides that if the time mentioned is more than one year, but there is power to determine, it is within the statute. I have never been able to see why that is not a perfectly good working construction for this statute.

But I entirely concur with the main reason given by the Lord Chancellor for refusing this appeal. This point was in terms decided in the year 1856, and decided with reference to this very identical contract—a contract of service for a certain number of years determinable on six months' notice—( Dobson v. Collis, 1856, 1 H. & N. 81).

I am sure that I am not exaggerating when I say that hundreds and thousands of such contracts have been made since, and that whenever they come before the courts, although they have not gone beyond Nisi Prius, the ruling has been that they are required to be in writing; and it would be, I think, a very serious thing for your Lordships to upset the course of decision when, as it seems to me, without inconsistency the two classes of

Page: 683↓