Binnie v Morris
| Jurisdiction | Scotland |
| Judgment Date | 12 April 1943 |
| Docket Number | No. 15. |
| Date | 12 April 1943 |
| Court | High Court of Justiciary |
HIGH COURT.
Lord Justice-General. Lord Fleming. Lord Carmont.
Statutory Offences—Rent Restrictions Acts—Letting furnished house for extortionate rent—Complaint—Relevancy—Necessity for specifying facts inferring extortion—Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Act, 1920 (10 and 11 Geo. V, cap. 17), sec. 10—Rent and Mortgage Interest Restrictions Act, 1939 (2 and 3 Geo. VI, cap. 71), sec. 3 (1) and First Sched.
Under sec. 10 of the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Act, 1920, it is an offence to let any furnished house to which the Act applies, where "the rent charged yields to the lessor a profit which, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, and in particular to the margin of profit allowed under the last preceding section of this Act, is extortionate." The Rent and Mortgage Interest Restrictions Act, 1939, by sec. 3 (1) and the First Schedule, extends the application of the principal Acts to further classes of houses, but enacts that, in relation to any such dwelling-house to which the principal Acts did not apply immediately before the commencement of the Act of 1939, sec. 10 of the Act of 1920 shall be modified by the omission of the clause relating to the margin of profit.
A complaint libelling an offence against sec. 10 of the Act as modified set forth the amount of the rent charged and the amount of the profit which it yielded to the landlord, and further set forth that this profit, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, was extortionate.
Held that the complaint was irrelevant, in respect that, under sec. 10 of the Act of 1920 as modified, it is not open to the prosecutor to found merely upon the largeness of the profit, but he must specify facts inferring an element of unfairness in the conduct of the landlord.
Benjamin Stephen Morris was charged in the Sheriff Court at Dumbarton on a complaint at the instance of John Binnie, Procurator-fiscal, which set forth that "you did, between 1st November 1941 and 18th September 1942, both dates inclusive, at the dwellinghouse known as “Glentarf,” Viewfield Avenue, Lenzie, in the County of Dumbarton let said dwellinghouse“Glentarf,” Viewfield Avenue, Lenzie, being a dwellinghouse to which the Acts first and second aftermentioned apply, to Captain Richmond Cyril Vesey Ross, D.S.O., Royal Navy, now residing at Sunnybrae, Garngaber Avenue, Lenzie, at a rent of eighteen pounds sterling per calendar month, which rent included payment in respect of the use of furniture in said house, all in terms of missives of let dated 2nd and 3rd June 1941, as extended by minute dated 21st and 24th January 1942, which missives and minute will be produced at the calling hereof, and which rent of eighteen pounds sterling per calendar month yielded to you a profit of twelve pounds sterling per calendar month, which, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, was extortionate; contrary to the Increase of Rent and Mortgage. Interest (Restrictions) Act, 1920, section 10, as amended by section 3 of the Rent and Mortgage Interest Restrictions Act, 1939, and the First Schedule thereto,1…"
On 8th February 1943 the Sheriff-substitute (Burns) dismissed the complaint as irrelevant, and, at the request of the Procurator-fiscal, stated a case for appeal to the High Court of Justiciary.
The stated case set forth, inter alia, that the grounds of the...
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