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In class the other day at DeMontfort University, I anwered a question on the mischief rule, to which the lecturer hadn’t a clue what I was on about. From my previous notes from opentuition’s lectures, I have a case RE Sigworth where the courts used the mishief rule to stop a repugnant situation. I was told the ‘RE’ in the case title means there are no adverse parties, just one party seeking advice from the court. My lecturer has never heard of ‘RE’ in case titles. I don’t want to put it down in the exam if it is wrong, I suppose I could use R v Clark?
Thanks in advance
From Daniel GloverDoes the RE in the cae title mean no adverse parties? Can I use the case RE Sigworth for the mischief rule? I can not find anything on the internet about the RE and I didn’t get a mark for it in a mock test.
Hi
You are correct – a “re” case is where , for example, an executor who wishes to avoid potentially crippling penalties for doing something wrong, approaches the court for advice. In the case re Sigsworth the administrator of the parents’ estate asked the court whether the Intestacy rules applied where the estate was to be passed to the son. However, it was the son who had caused the intestacy by murdering his parents. The Court looked at the Literal Rule which said the son should inherit according to the Intestate Estates Act. However, to apply the literal rule would lead to an absurd situation where a murderer was going to benefit from their crime. The Court has to follow the literal rule unless….it would lead to an absurdity ( the Golden Rule ). here, the court followed the Golden Rule and prevented young Sigsworth from claiming an inheritance.
Cases to illustrate the Mischief Rule would be Gardner v Sevenoaks and Gorrod v Scott ( Sigsworth illustrates the Golden Rule as also does Whitely v Chappell
Hope that helps
Incidentally, R v Clark illustrates something completely different! The point of law in Clark’s case is that, for a person validly to be able to claim a reward, they must at least be aware of the reward at the time of their “reward-earning” actions.
In R v Clark, the state successfully proved to the court that Clark had “nothing else in his mind other than taking action to save himself from being hanged” Therefore, at the time of giving information leading to the arrest of the remainder of his gang of outlaws, he did not have in his mind any awareness of the existence of the reward.
This contrasts with the case Williams v Carwardine
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