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Law Notes Property, Equity and Trusts 1 Notes

Super Summaries Notes

Updated Super Summaries Notes

Property, Equity and Trusts 1 Notes

Property, Equity and Trusts 1

Approximately 320 pages

The old Property, Equity & Trusts subject at UNSW. Dealt primarily with old system. Contents include detailed case notes (and super summaries ideal for use in an open book exam) and article summaries on the following classes:
Class 1&2 – The Concept of Property
Class 3&4 - Goods
Class 5&6 - Possession of Land
Class 7 - Limitation of Actions
Class 8 - The Doctrine of Tenure and Estates; Determinable and Conditional and Future Interests, The Doctrine of Waste, Fragmentation of legal/beneficial...

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The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Property, Equity and Trusts 1 Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

Part 1 – Introductory Material

Concept Key Cases Issue Principle Ratio Comments
Property and contractual rights King v David Allen & Sons Whether a contractual right to post billboards survived the leasing of the property

  • A contract creates a personal obligation (Lord Buckmaster LC)

  • Whatever rights created have been taken away by preventing them from being exercised.

  • The landlord is liable in damages

Note: licenses not enforceable against third parties

Three kinds of license exists:

  • Bare License – no contract, can be revoked at will upon which licensee leaves at reasonable time (Wood v Leadbitter)

  • Contractual license – from contract, bound by contract; damages breach depends on nature (Jarvis v Swan Tours). Can be broken by a BFPFVWN

  • Proprietary License – cannot be revoked
Georgeski v Owners Corporation Whether a licensee can rely on the remedy of trespass

  • No possession exists for a licensee unless coupled with a profit a prendre.

  • Mere physical presence or physical use does not suffice to invoke trespass

  • The plaintiff has no legal rights through the license except the permission to occupy which does not contemplate the physical exclusion of others

  • Even if a profit a prendre existed it would only be relevant to injunctive relief if someone attempted to dismantle the jetty; rather than just enter it
Property Rights and the rights of persons Moore v Regents of UC Whether liability in conversion is preserved for unauthorized use of cells

  • Conversion liability should not be extended on grounds of policy

  • The protection of patient’s rights can be adequately covered by disclosure obligations, conversion would eclipse the physician’s innocent judgment as a strict liability tort

  • Research would be hindered by restricting access to free and efficient raw materials

  • The legislature should make this kind of decisions since they can reach an expert opinion
Property rights, reputation, personality and privacy Victoria Park Racing and Recreation Grounds Co v Taylor Whether a property right existed in a spectacle that was infringed by one commentating from above?

  • Though an occupier can exclude their neighbour’s view, it isn’t wrongful to overlook land or create artifices to destroy their privacy; no action can be maintained against them (Dixon J)

  • It can be discerned that freedom from view is not a legal or natural right.

  • Interference with business does not equate with enjoyment of land and is not actionable without quasi-property rights (as in the US)

Henderson v Radio Corp [NSWSC] – well-known ballroom dancers can restrain distribution of record covers even if not used in the same industry

Sykes v Fairfax – Person who invented certain column entitled to exclusive use because of reputation built

Cf Victoria Park w/:

Emcorp v ABC – Injunction restraining ABC from televising film by workers who trespassed (cf Church of Scient. V Transmedia)
ABC v Lenah Whether a third party who obtains footage from another who trespassed to obtain it is answerable to the trespassee.

  • A tension exists between privacy and free speech – the price of living in an organized society is observation by others. A fine line exists between ‘public’ and ‘private’

Trespass

  • A nexus must exist between the trespasser’s tort and the appellant’s conscience. Only if the appellant was party to the trespass could an injunction be granted and then only if the activities filmed were private

  • IFF the information obtained was confidential could breach of confidence provide a remedy. Otherwise, even if tortuously obtained, this doesn’t make it unconscientiously for a third party to publish

  • The line isn’t so easily drawn between ‘public and private; but without being complicit in the illegality there is no reason why the appellant can’t publish the information it has.
Concept Key Cases Issue Principle Ratio Comments
Property and the right to work Dorman v Rogers Whether a right to appeal existed on ‘property’ (right to work – a practicing certificate) allegedly worth over $2000

  • A right to appeal exists for claims more than $20,000

Gibbs CJ

  • No appeal lies – the right to practice isn’t capable of valuation

  • What is valuable is the person’s own earning capacity since he may earn even more without the practicing certificate

Stephen J

  • The distinction is that this right is incapable of transfer and its dependency on personal qualities; unlike other readily transferrable instruments

  • What is lost is not the monetary effect but the loss of personal qualities which is required to practice

 In general right to work not a property right (Forbes v NSW Trotting – punter didn’t have a right to work at the races)
Davis v Commonwealth Whether Commonwealth ‘s authority to commemorate the bicentenary extended to making offences of making symbols capable of being mistaken for them.

  • No, the exercise of legislative authority in this case would extend beyond commemoration to the attainment of objects as if they were independent of commemoration

  • The effect of this provision gives authority to regulate the use of everyday expressions; this is grossly disproportionate to the need to protect commemoration

  • The sections reach too far beyond their legitimate object

Part 2 – The Doctrine of Fixtures

Concept Key Cases Issue Principle Ratio Comments
Fixtures in general Belgrave Nominees v Barlin-Scott AC Whether air-conditioning unit affixed by a complex process, bolted to the ground was a fixture or chattel.

  • If a chattel is fixed by means other than its own weight, prima facie it is a fixture

  • The test of whether it is fixed depends on both

    • Temporal intention (whether intended to be permanent or for a substantial as opposed to simply to hold it in place) and;

    • The intention of the person fixing it at the time (gathered from the purpose/time at which it was fixed)

  • If it cannot be removed without permanent damage this is a strong but not conclusive evidence of a...

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