Were the barristers for May Donoghue (before the Judicial Commitee of the House of Lords) pro bono or paid? Source: p 127, Is Eating People Wrong? Great Legal Cases and How They Shaped the World (2011) by Allan C. Hutchinson Undaunted, Leechman made the final maneuver available to May – he applied for leave to appeal to the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, the highest court of appeal for all cases in the United Kingdom, including Scottish cases. Her petition to appeal in forma pauperis was presented on February 26, 1931, and granted on March 17, 1931. All was now set for the final showdown in which there was much more at stake than the commercial relations between gingerbeer manufacturers and their clients. [Glaswegian Solicitor Walter] Leechman, but not May, traveled down to London to listen to arguments in December 1931. As was and remains the custom, local lawyers brief more senior counsel on such occasions. May was represented by George Morton (king’s counsel) and W[illiam] R. Milligan, who was later to become Scotland’s lord advocate. The source above, Wikipedia and MRS. DONOGHUE’s JOURNEY1 by Martin R. Taylor QC all state that Solicitor Walter Leechman (altruistically, benevolently) acted freely to represent May Donoghue; but they do not clarify whether the two barristers (bolded above) were paid or pro bono? 1Originally published in Donoghue v Stevenson and the Modern Law of Negligence, Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia, 1991
You have your answer already in the quotation you give. Her petition to appeal in forma pauperis was presented on February 26, 1931, and granted on March 17, 1931 At that time the Appeals (Forma Pauperis) Act 1893 (56 &amp; 57 Vict c 22) was in force. This created a limited form of legal assistance for paupers that paid for, amongst other things, counsel to appear before the House of Lords on appeal. See the costs order made by the House of Lords on remitting the case.
Typically in defamation law, claims made persuiant to litigation are not defamatory, since they are going to be tested for validity if the case goes to trial. I'm not familiar with any differences in what is generally done in settlements between the U.K. and the U.S., but since both are Common Law countries, and Settlements are very common in civil proceedings in the U.S., it's a good start. Generally a settlemant can occur anytime before the verdict of the case is rendered, although usually it will happen after preliminary hearings during the Discovery phase. In the U.S., Discovery is very broad and one need not prove that the requested items contain evidence but might contain evidence. This means that, for example, you could request a substantial amount of e-mail records from the opposing party because somewhere on the company e-mail server, there might be something to help your case. And even if after you sift through the emails and find no smoking guns related to your case, you could find some dirty laundry that's unrelated but still damning... if not more so than the initial case. Many people, especially big compainies, would rather just give the ex-employee some what he/she wants, if it means they don't get to see the proverbial man behind the curtain. Additionally the practice might fall into a legally gray area of the law that, if it reaches trial, could hurt the company or even the industry if a judge rules against the company, effectively saying that this gray area is now definately illegal. Better to eat the loss of capital with the settling out of court than to take the much larger hit of the buisness practice being illegalized all together. Typically in settlements, both parties agree to terms and sign a contract. While the whole of the terms are never discussed, almost all include that the plaintiff will drop the case and never bring the matter to court again and that both parties will sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) meaning that they won't discuss the rest of the settlement terms with anyone not party to them. If the plaintiff does break the NDA, the defendant can sue for breech of contract and recover at the least the monitary compensation they awarded in the settlement. Conversely, if the respondent breaks the NDA, the plaintiff can refile their initial suit with the addition of breech of contract (and this time it will get to court... and all the dirty laundry sees the harsh light of day.). While the respondent in a settled case can possibly sue for defamation if the plaintiff said the respondent did what the initial suit claimed they did (legally, it was never proven or disproven), or they were guilty (again, since no verdict was reached at trial, no guilt was established), the breech of contract is a much more airtight case and doesn't open up discovery to the respondent's cupability in the settled case (since the breech is about discussing the settled case at all, not the validity of the accusations of the settled case). Typically they would not go this route because then it opens the can of worms the settlement was trying to keep a lid on.
The earliest mention of the principle that I can find is in Rolston v Secretary of State for Northern Ireland [1975] NI 195, where the matter of compensation for the widow of a police officer murdered in Northern Ireland arose. I am sure there are earlier cases that express the same principle in different terms, however. It is a broad principle that applies to most areas of civil law, and I cannot find an original source for it. I imagine that it is simply &quot;received wisdom&quot; that has been repeated long enough to become a cornerstone of the law of restitution in England and Wales. There is currently no statutory basis for the principle so I cannot cite any relevant Acts of Parliament either.
Does the High Court of Justice of England and Wales (Queen's Bench Division) ever exercise original criminal jurisdiction in serious cases (eg, a terrorism trial) in modern times? Has it ever exercised such jurisdiction since its creation by the Judicature Acts? No, with the exception of criminal contempt of court proceedings (which arguably don't constitute &quot;serious cases&quot;). Prior to the Constitutional Reform Act of 2005, the Lord Chief Justice of the High Court was &quot;President of the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal and Head of Criminal Justice, meaning its technical processes within the legal domain,&quot; but these duties were appellate and administrative in nature, rather than involving original jurisdiction, and under the 2005 Act the Lord Chief Justice can appoint another judge to these positions. England's criminal courts and civil courts were already almost completely separated before the modern &quot;High Court of Justice was established in 1875 by the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873.&quot; The High Court is a direct successor to courts dating all of the way back to the 1200s, some of which had original criminal jurisdiction, but those predate the Judicature Act cutoff of the question. Caveats This said, English legal history is not a model of strict consistency, and I wouldn't be stunned to discover some random one-off original jurisdiction criminal trials in the late 1800s or early 1900s under statutes that have now been long since repealed that attracted little notice and have little or no modern legal importance. But, I have no actual knowledge of any such exceptions. For example, while the Admiralty Division of the High Court is now exclusively civil, I wouldn't be stunned to discover that the Admiralty Division at some point long ago, but after 1875, might have had original criminal jurisdiction over crimes committed on the high seas, like piracy and mutiny, even though it no longer has such jurisdiction. England's Admiralty Courts historically had this jurisdiction, and England's Admiralty Courts were consolidated into the High Court in 1875. But it isn't easy to discern from the resources available to me precisely when authority for crimes committed on the high seas was transferred from England's Admiralty Court to the Crown Courts (which have jurisdiction over these cases now). Similarly, while debtor's prison was abolished in England in 1869, a few years before the High Court was created, I wouldn't be shocked to find that the Queen's Bench division may have handled some residual original jurisdiction cases related to quasi-criminal body executions for non-payment of debts originally resulting in incarceration in debtor's prisons, in cases originally arising prior to 1869 that weren't fully wrapped up in 1875. Footnote Some countries with common law legal systems and a court system based upon the English model have courts called a &quot;High Court&quot; which consolidate the functions of the English &quot;High Court&quot; and the English &quot;Crown Court&quot; (which handles trials in serious criminal cases) in a single court. This is frequently motivated by a shortage of judges with the exceptional legal competence necessary to inspire confidence in the conduct of such proceedings. In U.S. practice, for example, it is the rule and not the exception, for felony criminal cases, civil cases arising in equity, serious civil cases arising at law, and both criminal and civil appeals from lower courts to all be handled by the same court of general jurisdiction (although the terminology, of course, is usually slightly different since the U.S. does not have, and has never had after 1776, a King, a Queen, or Lords, as a matter of constitutional law).
england-and-wales She (as the claimant) would have to prove that the food caused her &quot;long-term negative effects&quot; and the shop (as the defendant) was negligent in knowingly offering spoilt food - a legal concept known as &quot;causation&quot; that Wikipedia describes as concering: the legal tests of remoteness, causation and foreseeability in the tort of negligence. It is also relevant for English criminal law and English contract law. [...] The claimant must prove that the breach of the duty of care caused actionable damage. The test for these purposes is a balance between proximity and remoteness: that there was a factual link between what the defendant did or failed to do, and the loss and damage sustained by the claimant, and that it was reasonably foreseeable at the relevant time that this behaviour would cause loss and damage of that type. I cannot find any relevant caselaw using the given circumstances of far-future ill-effects, but it seems unlikely (to me) that such a claim would succeed on the information available due to the remoteness between events.
Yes, it's actally happened. Several outfits have filed cases by the hundreds, and they were even literally photocopies. And it works rather well, until one victim stands up for what's right - and then the house of cards comes tumbling down. Molski For instance, due to a minor ADA issue (toilet paper roll 2&quot; too low etc.) poor Jarek Molski was injured using the bathroom... in hundreds of restaurants, many on the same day, and hundreds in the same week. On one hand, hundreds of defendants simply paid Molski off, raising about a million dollars. On the other hand, the first defendant to actually fight back was able to uncover the hundreds of other cases, and the obvious fraud. The court swiftly ruled that Jarek Molski is a vexatious litigant and can file no more lawsuits, except by asking permission (presenting the facts to a judge and the judge deciding that there's really a worthy case there). The lawyers which represented Molski are likewise barred from representing anyone in an ADA case. Their law firm, likewise. Righthaven Another group of lawyers set up a law firm specifically to sue the owners of &quot;BBS's&quot; / internet forums / Q&amp;A sites such as StackExchange, whose public users had pasted up copies of newspaper articles into the BBS. They Bought the &quot;right to sue&quot; from copyright owners such as newspapers - Righthaven didn't own the content, just the &quot;hunting license&quot; to go after people who infringed on the content - with the content owners getting a cut of proceeds. They too filed hundreds of &quot;madlib&quot; lawsuits. In fact their lawsuit engine was so automated that they 'accidentally' sued journalists writing about Righthaven - (who quoted material from the entirely public lawsuit papers themselves - complaints are public by definition unless sealed by the courts.) Needless to say, Righthaven had never heard of DMCA Safe Harbor, or hoped the forum owners hadn't. Again it worked: hundreds &quot;paid up&quot;. Molski and Righthaven carefully chose &quot;settlement offer&quot; numbers ($5000-ish) that would be slightly cheaper than raising a legal defense ($6000-10,000). In the USA, each party pays their own legal bills - there's no concept of &quot;loser pays&quot; unless the other party's conduct is outrageous. It's so rare that when I had the pleasure of doing so, the court told us to take the standard garnishment forms, cross out &quot;defendant&quot; and hand-write &quot;plaintiff&quot; :) And again, the first defendant to actually stand up to Righthaven in court, asked the court to knock Righthaven to the moon, which the court gleefully did. RIAA / MPAA BitTorrent is a file-sharing network with no central hub. It breaks files into thousands of &quot;chunks&quot;. Users collect chunks from hundreds of other users until they have the whole thing. Part of the social contract of BitTorrent is that people who download also upload (seed) to share the chunks they have gotten so far. People who refuse to upload are called leeches. RIAA and MPAA are the trade associations of the music and movie industries, respectively. They searched for BitTorrent (pirated, they claim) copies of their members' music and movies. They then &quot;leeched&quot; those copies with modified BitTorrent software that recorded the IP address of the &quot;seeder&quot;. They took the IP address to the owning ISP, and demanded the customer identity. Then they sent out &quot;pay-us-or-else&quot; letters by the tens of thousands, and filed suits by the thousands. The argument was that the seeder had pirated the music, and that the ISP account holder was financially responsible for that activity, neither claim 100% reliable. This campaign has been supported by the courts, because RIAA/MPAA were very careful of their legal footing. But I only mention this because another gang of lawyers was paying attention, and they had their own ideas. Prenda &quot;Law&quot; This gang of lawyers correctly guessed that if users panicked at an RIAA/MPAA demand letter, they'd really panic if the topic was pornography. So they set up a law firm specifically to apply RIAA/MPAA's techniques to porn. (one wonders if they paid RIAA a royalty). But they were much more outrageous and careless. For instance, rather than partner or purchase legitimate porn content, they worked with porn stars like Sunny Leone to create shell companies who, unbelievably made original content specifically as bait to ensnare BitTorrent users. Again, this situation only works until someone stands up for what's right: then it all falls apart. This ended much, much worse than Righthaven or Molski. The civil judges were so offended they referred the matter out for criminal prosecution. The organizers got 19 years in prison between them.
england-and-wales - present day... Would the contents of the envelope be considered privileged? No Although it is possible to argue that the letter is a communication to the lawyer (albeit by mistake) its purpose is not in relation to seeking or receiving legal advice, so it fails to meet the definition of legal privilege: There are two forms of legal professional privilege: Legal advice privilege protects confidential communications between lawyers and their clients for the purposes of giving or obtaining legal advice. Litigation privilege protects confidential communications between lawyers, clients and third parties made for the purposes of litigation, either actual or contemplated. Would the lawyer be required to divulge it if asked by the police or in a court? Yes, No, Maybe If the lawyer is a suspect/defendant then there is no requirement to answer any questions whatsoever. Similarly, there is no obligation on a witness to answer questions unless a statutory provision has been triggered, such as the lawyer being given a Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 Disclosure Notice. Would he be required to report the matter to the police on his own? Yes Although there is no general requirement to report a crime (of this nature) to the police, the lawyer's profession is in the &quot;regulated sector&quot; which requires Suspicious Activity Reports to be submitted to the authorities: ... in respect of information that comes to them in the course of their business if they know, or suspect or have reasonable grounds for knowing or suspecting, that a person is engaged in, or attempting, money laundering... What difference, if any does it make that the client apparently did not intend to send these contents to the lawyer? None that I can see ETA The status of legal privilege in 1925 seems to have been the same as now, and this Wikipedia article, under the heading History offers this in support: The common law principle of legal professional privilege is of extremely long standing. The earliest recorded instance of the principle in English case-law dates from 1577 in the case of Berd v Lovelace ([1576] EngR 10 (&amp; Ors))
Statutes of limitations (hereinafter "SOL") vary from jurisdiction-to-jurisdiction. If it is only one-year in New York (I've not confirmed this) that would not be surprising. SOLs exist for all civil matters and nearly all criminal matters. I'd just like to point out that your question is not really limited to defamation or to the time frame for which the specific SOL runs for libel/slander ... at least as I've read it. It seems you are asking the broader question pertaining to what the philosophical or practical purpose(s) for SOLs in general are, as well as what effect these limits can have on the ability of a would-be claimant/plaintiff to get relief through the courts. So, to answer whether a person who believes they've been defamed can still bring a cause of action after the SOL has passed: the short answer is no. But, that is only the short answer. SOL is an affirmative defense, meaning that it can only be asserted if it is pled in the answer to a complaint. So, if John Doe feels he's been defamed by a libelous statement in the Times, and he files suit 4 years after the statement was made (and the SOL is 1 year), the court will still accept the filing of the complaint and Times must still be served. You do not lose the right to file your claim, when the SOL has passed, which is a very common misconception of the law. And, Times must still file an Answer to avoid defaulting. However, in that answer Times (no doubt by and through qualified counsel) will most likely assert a variety of affirmative defenses pro forma, which will include the passage of SOL (the claim is stale). If, in fact, the SOL has passed and the affirmative defense is pled, the next thing the Times will do is file a motion to dismiss. The judge will view the complaint in a light most favorable to Doe, the plaintiff, which will lay out all the facts (including when the libelous statement was published). If the cause of action accrued (this just means when the injury was sustained) and the claim was not filed prior to the expiration of the SOL, Doe's case will be dismissed. If the Times does not assert SOL though, it is deemed to have been waived for that and any subsequent related proceedings. There are ways to toll (extend) the statute of limitations. There is a discovery rule (this does not mean Doe didn't read it until after the SOL, even though he was able to). It means that the SOL can be tolled in cases where one could not have discovered the tort occurred. In these instances, the SOL doesn't begin to run until the discovery was either made or should have been made. This is most typically seen in medical malpractice cases (e.g., a surgeon leaves a sponge or instrument in your abdomen, and after years of failed treatments for IBS your doc sends you for an x-ray and an MRI and it's discovered) or in asbestos cases (you don't know you breathed it until you have asbestosis) &ndash; those types of scenarios. In cases like that, the SOL begins to run when you find out the tort occurred. This has also been successful in recovered memory cases where childhood sexual abuse occurred but was suppressed. Incapacitation is another way the SOL can be tolled. So, in Doe's libel case, the SOL can be tolled if he is incapacitated (in a coma and didn't wake for 4 years, in a mental hospital in a break from reality for 5 years) &ndash; in such circumstances you can still file a claim and have it survive a motion to dismiss based on SOL once you are rehabilitated. Also, Absence due to military service is reason to toll in some jurisdictions. Lastly, (at least the last one I can recall) is that minors can often toll the SOL however long the statute is (say 1 year) after they turn 18. As for why there are SOLs: That is more public policy than anything else. It is one of the oldest rules of law known to modern man, dating back all the way to early Greek and Roman law. Statutes of limitations are a fundamental part of EU and US law, as well as most other modern legal systems. They function to prevent fraudulent and stale claims from arising after all evidence has been lost or after the facts have become dubious and unclear due to the progression of time, which can lead to lost or uncertain memories, death of witnesses (for each side), or disappearance/inability to locate witnesses. The policies behind SOLs are also for judicial economy and to protect defendants from having a never-ending potential suit looming over them. Often, the seriousness of the crime or the tort, or some element of it, dictates the time frame of the SOL. It is a means to ensure that plaintiffs pursue their claims with reasonable diligence: I.e., if it matters to you, file it. Also, as I touched on above, time disadvantages defendants. Plaintiffs are the "injured" party, so they tend to retain evidence much longer than a defendant, who might not even realize he has done wrong &ndash; especially in civil matters. So, in a libel case, the whole basis of the claim is the irreparable damage to your reputation. If more than a year has passed and you didn't know about it, one could assume the damage never rose to the level of having sufficed to make a valid claim in the first place. That is why they run fast in those cases. They run fast in medical malpractice claims too, but this is a result of tort reform &ndash; the public policy that litigation against doctors/hospitals causes increased health care costs for everyone. So, policy suggests it's best for society to dispose of these claims quickly (not so much if you're the plaintiff). Whereas most regular negligence claims can have SOLs as long as six years in some jurisdictions where I have practiced. So there are clearly policy determinations going into these legislative acts. The Golden Rule of Law that I tell all of my clients is this: If you think you have a claim, talk to a lawyer right away, because if you don't you can lose the right to pursue relief, much, much quicker than one may ever imagine! I know this is a long answer, but I get asked this (type) of question all the time. Plaintiffs feel the SOLs run too fast, while Defendants cannot believe they can still be on the hook!