Mexborough and Swinton Times April 3rd 1909
Denaby Rating Appeal.
House of Lords’ Judgment,
The House of Lords gave judgement, Tuesday, dismissing the appeal of the Over seers of the Parish of Denaby and others v the Denaby and Cadeby Main Collieries, Limited
The Lord Chancellor said the dispute turned upon the true meaning of the first section of the Union Assessment Committee’s Amendment Act, 1R64. When that section said that 21 days’ notice was to be given to an Assessment Committee “previous to” the Special or Quarter Sion, to which such appeal was to be made, did that mean the next practicable Sessions, or did it mean the Scissions at which the appeal was .to be heard, whether the next or a later Sessions? When an additional duty was imposed on the aggrieved ratepayer to give notice to any other person interested it was held long ago that the new provision was to be read in harmony with the old law. So the right of entering and respiting was not lost, though the new notice had not been given.
In his opinion the same applied to the present case and the notice under the Act of 1864 would be in time if it was given to the Sessions at which the- appeal was to be heard. No doubt it was possible to find grammatical arguments to the contrary. But the words of the Act would equally bear the construction which the Court of Appeal placed on them, and the intention was merely to graft a new notice on to the old practice.
Lords Halgbury, Ashbourne, and MacNaughton concurred, and the appeal was dismissed.