Ivory v Palmer
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE CAIRNS,LORD JUSTICE ROSKILL,LORD JUSTICE BROWNE |
| Judgment Date | 06 March 1975 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1975] EWCA Civ J0306-4 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 06 March 1975 |
[1975] EWCA Civ J0306-4
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
Civil Division
On appeal from Judgment of His Honour Judge Chope, Plymouth County Court
Lord Justice Cairns
Lord Justice Roskill and
Lord Justice Browne
Mr G.M. GODFREY, Q.C. and Mr S.A.B. PARISH (instructed by Messrs Lucien A. Isaacs & Co., Agents for Mr Arthur Goldberg - Plymouth) appeared on behalf of the Appellant (Defendant).
Mr J.A.S. HALL. Q.C. and Mr J.G. HULL (instructed by Messrs Farrer & Co., Agents for Messrs Wolferstans - Plymouth) appeared on behalf of the Respondents (Plaintiffs).
We need not trouble you, Mr Hall.
This is an appeal from a decision of His Honour Judge Chope, sitting at the Plymouth County Court on the 5th August of last year. The Plaintiffs in the action are the trustees of a settlement. The Defendant is a man of 53 or 54, who had been employed by the Plaintiffs as a foreman carpenter. While so employed he had the occupation of a house belonging to the Plaintiffs. The time came when he was dismissed from his employment and he remained in occupation of the house.
The Plaintiffs brought an action for possession against him. He defended and counterclaimed. He contended that by an oral agreement between himself and a representative of the Plaintiffs he had been employed for life, subject to his doing his work properly, and had been given a rent-free tenancy of this house for the joint lives of himself and his wife. He counter-claimed a declaration to that effect; alternatively, that he was a protected tenant under the Rent Act. Then, as an alternative, if he were held not to be entitled to remain in possession, he claimed £500 in respect of expenditure which he said he had incurred on improving the house, damages for loss of the right to occupy it, and damages for wrongful dismissal.
The Judge held that he was employed for life subject to working properly, and held that he had a licence to occupy the cottage so long as he continued in that employment. The Judge found that the employment was in fact terminated by the Plaintiffs without good reason and without proper notice to the Defendant; he found that the Defendant had suffered no loss of earnings, at any rate that he had proved no loss of earnings, but that he was entitled to some damages based on the cost of removal to another residence and the loss of the rent-free residence withwhich he had been provided, and he assessed the damages at £200.
The Defendant appeals, contending that the claim for possession should have been dismissed, that a declaration should have been made in accordance with his counterclaim, and damages should be awarded to him on the basis of that claim.
The Plaintiffs served a cross-notice, contending that the Judge should have held that the employment was not for life but was subject to reasonable notice; and that the right to occupy the house was a licence subject to revocation upon reasonable notice.
It is convenient to deal first with the issue raised by the Plaintiffs' cross-notice, and this involves giving a rather fuller account of the facts. In September 1973 the Plaintiffs advertised for an estate carpenter. The Defendant applied for the job. He was interviewed by Mrs Hood, who had authority on behalf of the Plaintiffs to engage staff. There was a discussion between them, in the course of which it was agreed that the Defendant should be employed as foreman carpenter and that he should have a house which he and his wife could occupy free of rent. The Defendant's evidence was that Mrs Hood said that he would have a job for life and security for life and a home for his widow. Mrs Hood, though her answers were not always consistent with each other, said in chief that she had told the Defendant that if he worked satisfactorily, it was a job for life. The Judge's finding on the matter was this: "I am driven to the conclusion that what the Plaintiffs offered was a job for life as long as Mr Palmer worked satisfactorily". The salary was later fixed at £1,500 a year.
On the 20th September, 1973 a letter was written by the Plaintiffs addressed to the Defendant, setting out terms ofemployment, making no reference to its being employment for life, and indeed, on the contrary, providing for two weeks' notice on either side. The Defendant said he never received that letter. She Judge accepted that he never received it, and it disappears from the picture altogether. The question is: What was the contract resulting from the discussion between the Defendant and Mrs Hood, together with the later fixing of the salary at £1,500 a year and the taking up by the Defendant of his work and his going to live with his wife in the house, which he very shortly did?
All went well apparently until the early part of 1974, when the Plaintiffs formed the opinion that the Defendant was not working satisfactorily. He was interviewed on the 11th February. There was a dispute on the evidence as to the effect of the interview, but the Judge held, in favour of the Defendant, that he was told then that he was going to be dismissed and that he protested against that. On the 28th February he was dismissed summarily and called upon to give up possession of the house. He then left the employment of the Plaintiffs and took up some other work. According to his evidence, he first took up work as an area manager for a certain company, and then later he left that and began to work on his own account. The Judge held that the Plaintiffs had no good ground for saying that the Defendant's work was unsatisfactory, and accordingly found that he had been wrongfully dismissed.
The Plaintiffs' contention in this Court as to the terms of employment is that the Defendant was employed subject to reasonable notice on either side; that what was said about a job for life was no more than an expression of expectation that, if all went well, the job would in fact be a permanent one.Alternatively it was argued that if there was any contractual term about a job for life, it did not have the effect contended for by the Defendant.
There is no doubt that a person may be employed on a contract of service for life, even though there is no undertaking on his part to continue in the employment of the employer. See Salt v. Power Plant Company, 1936 3 All England Reports, 322, a decision of the Court of Appeal; and McClelland v. Northern Ireland General Health Services Board. 1957 1 Weekly Law Reports, 594, a decision of the House of Lords. These cases show that the Courts will lean against such a construction and that clear words are needed to bring it about, though in both of those authorities the word "permanent", taken with other factors, was held to connote employment for life.
Here the very words "a job for life" were used, according to evidence which was accepted by the learned Judge, and nothing else was said as to the duration of the employment or as to any circumstances in which it could be terminated. In my opinion, the Judge was entitled to find on the evidence here that what was said was intended to be contractual in effect, or, putting it more accurately, according to a passage which has been shown to us by Mr Godfrey, on behalf of the Defendant: "The conduct of each party and the language which was used was such as to show that each was reasonably entitled to conclude from the attitude of the other that that was the effect of the conversation". The passage in question is in the Speech of Lord Reid in McCutcheon v. David Macbrayne Limited, reported in 1964 1 Weekly Law Reports, page 125, at the foot of page 128.
I cannot say that the Judge was wrong in his conclusion on the facts as to this matter, and in so far as the question isone of law, I cannot say that he was wrong to hold that there was a contract to the effect of the Defendant being employed for life. The exact effect of that expression may be open to some doubt, but for my part I cannot see any other possible interpretation than that it meant either "a Job for the whole of your natural life", or "a Job for the whole of your working life". The latter would seem to be so much the more reasonable construction that I would so interpret it in this context. The Judge did not go into the question of the exact meaning of it.
What then is the effect of the contract so far as the right to occupy the house is concerned? The Judge held that the Defendant had a licence to occupy the house ancillary to his contract of employment, and that when the employment was terminated, although wrongfully, the licence came to an end.
Mr Godfrey contends that this is wrong and that the Defendant occupied as a licensee for life on a licence which could not be revoked, or as a tenant for life under the Settled Land Act, 1925, or as a tenant under a lease for life which, by reason of Section 149 of the Law of Property Act, 1925, would take effect as a lease for 90 years.
The Defendant's original case of a tenancy for the Joint lives of himself and his wife has not been pursued on appeal, and Mr Godfrey did not seek to establish an alternative case under the Rent Act.
The contention which he developed most fully was that in favour of a licence for life. There is no doubt that a licence for life can be granted. I the licensor purports to revoke such a licence, is the effect that the licence is revoked, leaving the licensee to claim in damages for breach of contract, or is the licence irrevocable during the life, entitlingthe licensee to remain in occupation?
In Foster v. Robinson, 1951 1 King's Bench, 149, where a farm worker had been told that he could live in a cottage rent-free until he died, Lord Evershed, Master of the Rolls, said at page...
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