Chose in Action in UK Law

On the contrary that chose in action is extinguished or reduced pro tanto, and a chose in action is brought into existence representing a debt in an equivalent sum owed by a different bank to the defendant or his solicitor. In these circumstances, it is difficult to see how the defendant thereby obtained property belonging to another, i.e. to the lending institution.

But (like Sir John Smith — see his commentary on the decision of the Court of Appeal in the present case [1995] Crim.L.R. 564) I find difficulty in conceiving that in either case section 15 applies where, as here, the solicitor receives the money in his capacity as agent of the lending institution, in circumstances in which the lending institution retains control over the money while in his (the solicitor's) hands and can require it to be repaid at any time.

I turn next to the release of the money by the solicitor, with the lending institution's authority, to the vendor's solicitor in the form of a banker's draft. Presumably the solicitor's bank will debit the solicitor's general account with the amount of the draft, and in due course the solicitor will effect an adjustment in his own accounts as between his client account and his general account.

In my judgment, the Court has to do (assuming that the Plaintiff has established negligence) In such a case as the present, is to determine what the Plaintiff has by that negligence lost. The question is, has the Plaintiff lost some right of value, some chose in action of reality and substance? in such a case it may be that its value is not easy to determine, but it is the duty of the Court to determine that value as best it can.

Accordingly, where a company suffers loss as a result of an actionable wrong done to it, the cause of action is vested in the company and the company alone can sue. No action lies at the suit of a shareholder suing as such, though exceptionally he may be permitted to bring a derivative action in right of the company and recover damages on its behalf: see Prudential Assurance Co. Ltd. v. Newman Industries Ltd. (No. 2) [1982] Ch. 204 at p. 210.

I venture to think that still remains a fundamental principle of our law. But it is today true to say that in English law an assignee who can show that he has a genuine commercial interest in the enforcement of the claim of another and to that extent takes an assignment of that claim to himself, is entitled to enforce that assignment unless by the terms of that assignment he falls foul of our law of champerty, which as has often been said, is a branch of our law of maintenance.

There is no "unjust factor" to justify restitution (unless "want of title" be one, which makes the point). Property rights are determined by fixed rules and settled principles. They do not depend upon ideas of what is "fair, just and reasonable." Such concepts, which in reality mask decisions of legal policy, have no place in the law of property.