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I have another Christmas present for the group, viz the CA's decision in _Surrey Breakdown Ltd_ v _Knight_, unreported 27th April 1998, which concerned a claim by a garage to recover the costs of pulling a man's car out of a pond at the request of the police, on the ground that the police were 'agents of necessity' and that their 'agency extended to authorising the [garage] to take away the car'.

The car had been stolen, it seems by joyriders, who then dumped it in the edge of a pond, and because the owner had no telephone it was impossible to contact him when the car was found, to authorise the car's removal. Interestingly, Sir Christopher Staughton regarded the issue of whether necessitous interveners can recover the costs they incur as 'not settled' if their actions take place on land, rather than at sea, and after citing Bowen LJ's well-known anti-recovery dictum in _Falcke_, he went on to describe and implicitly to accept 'the modern view ... to be found at Chap 15 in Goff & Jones 4th edn, esp p 373 [where] it is said that to support an agency of necessity "[it] must have compelled the intervention. The emergency must be so pressing as to compel intervention without the property owner's authority."'

Having apparently accepted the principle that necessitous interveners might recover via an action in UE, however, he then went on to hold on the facts that:

'it cannot reasonably be said that [the garage] in taking the car out of the pond at 4.35 in the morning were doing so because necessity compelled them to do so without the authority of ... the owner.'

He therefore concluded that no claim in UE would lie.

Charles

______________________________
Dr Charles Mitchell
Lecturer in Law
School of Law
King's College London
Strand
LONDON WC2R 2LS

tel: 0171 873 2290
fax: 0171 873 2465