Meux v Maltby

meux v. maltby. July 8, 10, [1818]. (iqa8).tX.&.6w.' [See Small v. Att-wood, 1832, You. 458 ; Taff Vale Railway v. Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, [1901] A. C. 443.] A joint stock company established by act of parliament, vesting in them all property then belonging to them, and authorising them to bring actions in the name of their treasurer for the time being, having purchased an estate pending a suit against the vendors, to compel the specific performance of an agreement to grant a lease of part ; on a bill by the vendee against the treasurer and directors, the plaintiffs were declared entitled to a lease, and the treasurer was enjoined from disturbing their possession, though the rest of the proprietors, being very numerous, were not parties ; but no decree could be made for the execution of a lease. In May 1804, Moses Agar agreed to let to Richard Frost a house in Rotherhithe, for twenty-one years from Christmas 1803, at an annual rent of £55, Frost paying £150 towards the expenses of building the house. Frost accordingly paid that sum, and had possession of the house ; but no lease having been executed, he, in June 1806, filed a bill for specific performance. Agar, by his answer, admitted the agreement, but alleged that he was unable to fulfil it, stating, that he had since sold and conveyed an estate at Rotherhithe, including the house in question, to David Matthews, who, before the [278] contract of sale was completed, was informed of the agreement with Frost, and engaged to perform it. Matthews, having been 622 MEOX V. MALTBV a SWANS. 279. made a Defendant, by his answer, admitted, that, in the course of the treaty with Agar for the purchase of the estate, he understood that Frost occupied the house, under some lease, or agreement for a lease. In October 1807, Matthews sold and conveyed the estates which he had purchased from Agar to Sir Charles Price and William Browning, in trust, for the East Country Dock Company. By an act of Parliament, 51. Geo. ,'i, c. clxxi., entitled " An act for completing and maintaining the East Country Dock at Bother liitlie, in the county of Surrey : " it was enacted, that the several persons therein named, together with such other person or persons, body or bodies politic, corporate or collegiate, as should, according to the conditions and restrictions iti that act contained, be possessed of any part of the joint stock of the said company, their several and respective executors, admin istrators, and assigns, being a proprietor or proprietors of any share or shares in the said dock or docks, should, for the purposes of the act, be a joint-stock company, by the name and style of the East Country Dock Company. The fourth section enacted, that all the messuages, lands, tenements, and hereditaments, which then belonged, or might thereafter belong, to the company, and all buildings, erections, and other matters and things thereon and thereunto belonging, and also all basins or docks, &c., which should be made, tc., by the company, should be, and the same were thereby, vested in the company, and it should be lawful for the company, in. the name of their treasurer for the time being, to bring any action or actions, and to prefer or prosecute [279] any bill or hills of indictment, against any person who should damage, or cause to be damaged, any of the works to be made, erected, &c., by virtue of the act, or who should injure or destroy the same whilst doing, or impede the doing thereof, or steal, or wrongfully take away any materials or machines provided or to be provided from time to time, or used, or intended to be used thereon, or for any other purposes of the act, or who should...