Imperial Tobacco Company (of Great Britain and Ireland) Ltd v Pierson
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Viscount Simonds,Lord Morton of Henryton,Lord Reid,Lord Cohen,Lord Denning |
| Judgment Date | 23 June 1960 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1960] UKHL J0623-2 |
| Date | 23 June 1960 |
| Court | House of Lords |
[1960] UKHL J0623-2
House of Lords
Viscount Simonds
Lord Morton of Henryton
Lord Reid
Lord Cohen
Lord Denning
Upon Report from the Appellate Committee, to whom was referred the Cause Imperial Tobacco Company (of Great Britain and Ireland) Limited against Pierson (Valuation Officer), that the Committee had heard Counsel on Wednesday the 27th day of April last, upon the Petition and Appeal of the Imperial Tobacco Company (of Great Britain and Ireland) Limited, whose registered office is situate at East Street, Bedminster, Bristol, 3, praying, That the matter of the Order set forth in the Schedule thereto, namely, an Order of Her Majesty's Court of Appeal of the 28th of July 1959, might be reviewed before Her Majesty the Queen, in Her Court of Parliament, and that the said Order might be reversed, varied or altered, or that the Petitioners might have such other relief in the premises as to Her Majesty the Queen, in Her Court of Parliament, might seem meet; as also upon the Case of William Pierson (Valuation Officer), lodged in answer to the said Appeal; and due consideration had this day of what was offered on either side in this Cause:
It is Ordered and Adjudged, by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in the Court of Parliament of Her Majesty the Queen assembled, That the said Order of Her Majesty's Court of Appeal, of the 28th day of July 1959, complained of in the said Appeal, be, and the same is hereby, Reversed, and that the Order of the Lands Tribunal, of the 1st day of August 1958, thereby set aside, be, and the same is hereby, Restored: And it is further Ordered, That the Respondent do pay, or cause to be paid, to the said Appellants, the Costs incurred by them in the Court of Appeal, and also the Costs incurred by them in respect of the said Appeal to this House, the amount of such last-mentioned Costs to be certified by the Clerk of the Parliaments: And it is also further Ordered, That the Cause be, and the same is hereby, remitted back to the Lands Tribunal, to do therein as shall be just and consistent with this Judgment.
My Lords,
On the 13th September, 1957, the Valuation Court for the West Riding of Yorkshire confirmed the assessment of a certain hereditament described in the Valuation List for the Bradford County Borough Rating Area as "Advertising Right" with a rateable value of £165. The Appellants, the Imperial Tobacco Company, had proposed that it should be reduced to £150. From this decision the Appellants appealed to the Lands Tribunal, which allowed the appeal reducing the rateable value to £150. The Respondent, the Valuation Officer, appealed to the Court of Appeal, which restored the original assessment. A final appeal is brought to your Lordships' House, which is asked once again to reduce the assessment. The sum involved in the present case is trifling, but it is said that the principle involved is important and affects a great number of other cases. That the question is one of some difficulty may be inferred from the fact that your Lordships are in favour of reversing the unanimous decision of the Court of Appeal.
My Lords, I have already said that the hereditament in question is described as "Advertising Right". It is correctly so described, and I think that, if that description is firmly kept in mind, the difficulty in the case disappears.
What, then, was the right which fell to be rated? It was created by an Agreement made on the 21st June, 1955, between the Corporation of Bradford and the Appellants under which the former granted to the latter "the exclusive right of fixing and exhibiting upon the premises of the Corporation at the junction of Forster Square Canal Road and Bolton Road in the City of Bradford a flashing neon advertising sign reading 'PLAYER'S PLEASE'", which was to be erected in a certain position and "to be operated by an automatic switch Together with all necessary rights ( a) to connect such sign to the switchboards and meters and to the main electric cable in the street ( b) to erect and maintain a permanent scaffold and iron ladder". The Agreement contained a number of ancillary provisions, including a provision that the sign and apparatus were to remain the property of the Appellants, who were to remove it within fourteen days of the termination of the Agreement. It was to remain in force for three years and thereafter until determined by either party giving three months' notice. The rent payable by the Appellants was £150 per annum.
This, then, was the right and, since the rent was fixed by parties bargaining at arm's length, there could be no apparent reason for saying that £150 was not the rateable value of the hereditament for the purpose of section 22 (1) ( b) of the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925. How, then, does it come about that the Court of Appeal has rejected this figure and admitted an assessment of £165? My Lords, I must confess that I find the argument and even the form of question to which it is directed somewhat elusive. The Appellants duly entered on the land of the Corporation and as they were entitled to do affixed on a wall, the property of the Corporation, their neon sign reading "Player's Please". It appears to have been in neon tubing fixed to mahogany letters, which were mounted on runner bars, themselves fixed to the wall by heavy channel brackets. They also erected a scaffold and ladder for the purpose of servicing the sign. In fact, to put it shortly, they exercised the right conferred by the Agreement in the manner that they found convenient, and it is the fact that they did so that has led to this contest and dictated the form of question which was stated for the decision of the Court by the Lands Tribunal. It was whether the Tribunal came to a correct decision in law in determining that the rateable value to be ascertained under section 56 of the Local Government Act, 1948, and section 22 (1) ( b) of the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, was that of the right granted by the Agreement of the 21st June, 1955, without taking into account work done subsequent to that date.
The Tribunal in so deciding this question had first to consider the terms of section 56 of the 1948 Act to which I now call attention. Into the law of rating advertising stations, which had always been a matter of some difficulty, section 56 introduced a new concept. It provided so far as material as follows:
"Where the right to use any land (including any hoarding, frame, post, wall or structure erected or to be erected on the land, and including also any wall or other part of a building) for the purpose of exhibiting advertisements is let out or reserved to any person other than the occupier of the land, or, when the land is not occupied for any other purpose, to any person other than the owner of the land, that right shall be deemed for rating purposes to be a separate hereditament in the occupation of the person for the time being entitled to the right, and shall be included in the valuation list as a separate hereditament accordingly …"
Nothing, I think, could be clearer than that it is the right let out or reserved to a person other than the occupier which is deemed to be a separate hereditament in the occupation of the person for the time being entitled to the right or, applying the general to the particular, than that from the moment that the Agreement of June, 1955, became operative the right thereby created was deemed to be, and therefore was, a separate hereditament in the occupation of the Appellants. Whether it was exercised or not, and, if exercised, whether on a mean or lavish scale, it was the same right, no more and no less, and fell to be valued accordingly. That is why I said, at the outset of this Opinion, that it was essential to look only at the right and turn one's eye from the physical aspect of the method of its exercise. In particular, it seems to be wholly irrelevant whether the apparatus by means of which the sign is exhibited can properly be called a "structure". Some concession or admission to this effect appears to have caused some confusion in the Court of Appeal. I am prepared to say it might be so described. It does not, in my opinion, touch the issue.
My Lords, the view that I have tried to express was put so cogently by the Tribunal that at the risk of repetition I will quote two sentences from an admirable judgment:
"It is, I think, clear", says Mr. Erskine Simes, "from the use of the word 'that' that the right which is deemed for rating purposes to be a separate hereditament is the right to use any land in its extended meaning for the purpose of exhibiting advertisements which is let out or reserved and to ascertain what that right is one must, I think, look at the terms of the document by which the grant is made or reserved, and that the value of the hereditament is the value of the right so granted or reserved. While it is, of course, true that the value must be ascertained as at the date of the proposal, it is the value of the grant and not of some other grant. The grant has its value irrespective of whether it is in fact exercised, and it is the grant which is the rateable hereditament, not the "exercise of the grant."
I agree.
A different view was taken in the Court of Appeal, by the learned Master of the Rolls with great doubt and hesitation, but firmly by Lord Justice Romer and Lord Justice Sellers. My Lords, I think that the error of their judgments flows from the failure to observe the nature of the right that was created by the Agreement. Thus Lord Justice Sellers says:
"In my opinion these factors and considerations establish that the Imperial Tobacco Company were in occupation of a separate hereditament used as of right consisting of the whole structure as erected and they are therefore liable to be rated thereon at...
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