House of Lords
| Published date | 01 April 1941 |
| Date | 01 April 1941 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002201834100500205 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
House of
Lords
THE
MEANING OF "
PERMIT"
McLeod v. Buchanan
AT
the present time it is frequently acriminal offence to
cause or permit another person to do a certain act, and
there have been various decisions on the meaning of the
word " permit " in the wording of particular statutes. Many
of these cases will be found collected on page 1836 of Stone's
Justices' Manual (seventy-second edition), and we dealt with
the subject in this Journal at page 357 of Vol. IV.
The
matter has now been considered by the House of
Lords in McLeod o. Buchanan (1940; 2
All
E.R.,
179).
In
that case a woman whose son was fatally injured as a
result of a motor accident had obtained
judgment
for damages
and costs against the negligent driver of the vehicle,
but
failed to recover anything
under
the judgment. She thereupon
brought an action to recover the damages
and
costs from the
owner of the vehicle, the respondent, alleging that he was
in breach of his duty
under
section 35 of the Road Traffic
Act, 1930, in permitting the driver (his brother) to use the
vehicle when it was not insured against third-party risks, in
the sense
that
it was not insured for private purposes when
in fact it was being used for a private purpose,
but
was
insured for commercial use only.
There
was no evidence
that
the owner knew that the driver was using the vehicle
for a private purpose, or
that
he gave
him
express permission
so to use it.
It
was held by the House of
Lords
on
the
facts
of
that
particular case that the respondent had permitted
the use of the vehicle when it was
not
insured against third-
party risks.
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