Almond v Heathfield Laundry (Birmingham) Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS,LORD JUSTICE HARMAN |
| Judgment Date | 27 October 1960 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1960] EWCA Civ J1027-3 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Date | 27 October 1960 |
[1960] EWCA Civ J1027-3
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
The Master of the Rolls (Lord Evershed)
Lord Justice Harman and
Lord Justice Donovan.
MR PATRICK BROWNE, Q.C. (Instructed by Messrs Linklaters & Paines) appeared as Counsel for the Appellants.
MR RAMSAY WILLIS, Q.C. and MR RAYMOND PHILLIPS (instructed by the Solicitor of Inland Revenue) appeared as Counsel for the Respondents.
: These two cases have raised questions of difficulty which I hope I may not unfairly describe as in some respects artificial. But although the difficulties are there we have reached a clear conclusion and have therefore thought that we could with advantage deliver our Judgments at once.
Both cases relate to laundry businesses, the one at Handsworth, Birmingham; the other at Fakenham, Norfolk. The facts in each case are found and sot out in the Decisions of the Lands Tribunal and I shall make some reference to those findings hereafter though I shall not in this Judgment repeat what no doubt will be in any report set out as being the necessary facts found in the Case. The problem arises of applying the language of Section 3, subsection 1 of the Rating and Valuation (Apportionment) Act 1928. I will read the relevant language in that subsection: "In this Act the expression 'industrial hereditament' means a hereditament occupied and used as a "factory or workshop: provided that the expression 'industrial hereditament' does not include a hereditament occupied and used as a factory or workshop if it is primarily occupied and used for the purposes of a retail shop". Sub-section 4 of the same section proceeds to amplify the meaning of the words "retail shop": "In this Act the following expressions have the meanings hereby respectively assigned to thorn, that is to say, 'retail shop' includes any premises of a similar character whore retail trade or business (including repair work) is carried on". Applying therefore the expansion of sub-section 4 to the original language of sub-section 1, you are left with this, that a hereditament which is used and occupied as a factory will cease to be an industrial hereditament for the purposes of the Act if it is primarily used for the purposes of a retail shop, including promises of a similar character, where retail trade or business, including repair work, is carried on. It is perhaps as well to observe at once that the rather elaborate formula which I have last road is not the same thing as though the sub-section had said "if it is primarily occupied for the purposes of retail trade or business", a point which is emphasised, as will later appear, by Lord Thankerton in Toogood's case. If that had boon the intention nothing would have been easier than to say so.
In order to discover what is meant by a factory or workshop you turn to the Factories Act of 1901, The Sixth Schedule of that Act contains language which beyond any doubt covers premises used for a business such as this, namely, laundry work. It is, therefore, conceded that the hereditament here in question is one occupied and used as a factory or workshop. But that, of course, is not conclusive: it still remains to decide whether being so occupied; it nonetheless is primarily occupied and used for the purposes of a retail shop etc. I have now stated the problem which these cases present.
It seems that not long after the passing of the 1928 Act there was a great number of cases to which it gave rise and a group of thorn came in the year 1931 before the House of Lords. Quite properly we have been referred to many of these cases and to passages from the speeches delivered in them, particularly speeches of Lord Duncdin I take some comfort as a promise to what follows from two observations which Lord Duncdin made in those cases. The first I find at page 465 of 1931 Appeal Cases, an observation made in the case of Sibloy v. Wilkinson and other cases, and it is this: "Certain decisions will,' it is hoped, prove of very general application and so be of service to the local rating authority. But, after all, the question is an individual one as to each particular hereditament". I add another citation, an expression of an oft cited principle, and that I take from page 473 "My Lords, the matter scorns to mo simply a question of attributing an everyday meaning to the words used in the definition"; and the noble lord is referring to the definition here in question, These citations do not carry the matter very much further but they do at least justify an approach which I suggest is the right approach, namely, first to consider these cases upon their own facts and in deciding thorn us apply, so far as you are not prevented by some previous decision, everyday meanings to everyday words,
New in this case Mr. Patrick Browne for the appellant laundries has conceded in this Court (though I think I am right in saying ho may wish to reserve the right to take another view hereafter) that the conduct of this laundry business is a retail trade or business. That, however, is not the end of the matter, for I have already indicated that the definition introduces two characteristics or qualifications: first, the hereditament must be or contain a retail shop, so called and understood, or provisos of a similar character thereto, and, second, the hereditament must be primarily occupied and used for the purposes of a retail shop. In these cases it is I think plain that there has at times boon a conflict between what has been, said to be a question of fact and what has been said to be a matter of law. An instance whore that, conflict was referred to is the tailors' case, if I may so describe it, Wilkinson v. Sibley reported in 1932, 1 King's Bench at page 194. That case the Court of garter Sessions had decided as one purely of fact by saying that the hereditament consisted in part of a workshop and in part a shop properly so called: that as a fact the former was preponderant in scope and dimensions and therefore that you could not say the promises were used primarily for the purposes of a retail shop. It was the view of this Court, as expressed by Lord Justice Scrutton, that the decisions in the cases to which I have already made a very brief allusion had made it necessary for the Court in the circumstances of that case to hold, not as a matter of fact but as a matter of law;, that there was one business carried on the hereditament and that it was what I will call a shop business the workshop being ancillary to the shop promises more strictly so described. It is, of course, quite true that when you have found the facts it is a question of law; to say whether they fall or do not fall within the scope of the definition which I have road. But it still remains a question of fact to decide what In truth is the nature or the character, as a matter of fact, of the business which is being carried one It may be that had Toogood' s case been decided by the House of Lords before and not after Lord Justice Scrutton delivered the Judgment I have mentioned, he might somewhat have qualified his language.
After that preliminary, I now turn to the facts of our two cases. I shall, as I have already said, omit much in the way of statement of fact set out in the Decisions and I can assume that a laundry business is something the general nature of which will be commonly understood! It is, therefore, sufficient to say of the Birmingham laundry that two thirds of the business it conducted was done by way of vans with roundsmen who called at the premises of the customers, collected the dirty laundry and in duo course called again with the clean articles. There was, however, a certain part of the business done by customers calling personally at the laundry promises, leaving their belongings to be washed and later collecting them. It is not in doubt that it is the arrangements in relation to this last part of the business that constitute, if at all, a retail shop within the meaning of the definition. What has been the burden of the argument for the respondent valuation officer is that if the arrangements I have mentioned from the physical characteristics and the promises connected thereto qualify as a retail shop, then since this is one single uniform business we cannot dissect it, as is said in some of the cases, and we must conclude that the whole laundry is really part of the shop business; it is, in other words, one shop business. The facts as regards the customers calling personally are illustrated for us both on a plan and by photographs. It seems that the laundry is situated in an area which is substantially residential though set back somewhat from the adjacent dwelling houses. In the road which is I think either Pinch Road or Gordon Road or at the junction of the two there is a gateway and against what appears to be a dwelling house on your loft as you approach the gateway there is a small wooden I can to structure on which is written in largo and legible letters the words "Heathfield Laundry", If you proceed then through the gateway some little way up a drive or private approach and pass beyond a dwelling house to your right you will eventually come to a space or passage and you will find there basket up against the wall; and if you wish to leave dirty laundry you throw it in the basket or if the basket is full you do the next best thing. When the time comes for collecting it you then follow the same route but you turn at a particular point before you got to this yard to your left and you come to a doorway that we are told has written upon it the words "Registered office" and you get into a passage and find on your right a sliding window. If you open it you will look into a room...
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Assessor for Lothian Region v Harper
...solution to the question. I find assistance here in the case of Almond (Valuation Officer) v. Heathfield Laundry (Birmingham) Ltd.WLR [1960] 1 W.L.R. 1339 and in particular in the judgment of Lord Evershed M.R. at p. 1350. But however that may be it appears to me that reference to sec. 3 (4......
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Newry Building Supplies Ltd v Commissioner of Valuation
...conclusion the Tribunal draws from the facts must be approached in a common-sense way. In Almond v Heathfield Laundry (Birmingham) Ltd [1960] 3 All ER 700, Harman LJ warned against “sliding slowly down the slippery path of authority” towards a conclusion which common sense dictated to be ri......