The case is especially important in the area of delict, bearing on the question of the remoteness of damages and a plaintiff's impecuniosity. The plaintiff in this case had seen his vehicle, which he had used in his business as a hawker, irreparably damaged in a collision. In order to continue his business, he had hired another vehicle for three months, but had been unable to afford the purchase of another vehicle. A rule of English law has it that expenses resulting from the plaintiff's impecuniosity are in principle irrecoverable.
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The court indicated that impecuniosity was not normally a good ground, although in this case the impecuniosity was alleged to have been caused by the defendant. The court also noted that Mr Johnson had from a very early stage made clear his intention of bringing a personal claim separate from the claim of WWH. Taken as a whole their Lordships was satisfied that there was no abuse, although they declined to lay down a definitive test. Their Lordships felt that the courts should take a broad, merit-based approach to account for the public and private interests involved (including a citizen's right of access to the court).
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He was a scholar and a poet. Before becoming a Sufi, Shaikh Jamal-ud- Din had been the khatib of Hansi, owning villages and extensive property. Discipleship with Baba Farid meant abandoning material prosperity. When his poverty became overwhelming, Shaikh Jamal-ud-Din, using Shaikh Nizam-ud-din Auliya of Delhi as a go-between, informed Baba Sahib of his extreme impecuniosity.
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He was a scholar and a poet. Before becoming a Sufi, Shaikh Jamal-ud-Din had been the khatib of Hansi, owning villages and extensive property. Discipleship with Baba Farid meant abandoning material prosperity. When his poverty became overwhelming, Shaikh Jamal-ud-Din, using Shaikh Nizam-ud-Din Auliya of Delhi as a go-between, informed Baba Sahib of his extreme impecuniosity.
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Marsh met Mary Swanzy at May Manning's art classes, with Swanzy remembering Marsh as being from "a background of impecuniosity, which did not apparently worry them in spite of a more affluent upbringing". Marsh was influenced artistically by her aunt and John Butler Yeats, with whom she became close friends. In summer of 1898, Yeats painted Marsh's portrait at Manning's studio. Marsh was more drawn to the work of Yeats than of his son, Jack, and modelled her portraits on that of the older Yeats.
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It is constituted as a non-profit association, initially comprising the cities of Liège and Verviers. The Ministry of National Education and French Culture of the time was financially involved shortly afterwards. During the communitarisation, the Opéra royal de Wallonie became part of the French Community of Belgium, which compensated for the impecuniosity of the city in 1990, and has since been its main source of funding. A few years later, the City, the Walloon Region and the Province of Liège gradually took over its financing.
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There can be no doubt, the court held in a further appeal, that in South African law the ratio of Liesbosch Dredger v Steamship Edison[1933] AC 449 (HL); [1933] All ER Rep 144. (regarding damages consisting of expenses incurred as a result of the plaintiff's impecuniosity) has no right of existence. The rigidity of the rule is inconsistent with the flexible approach followed in South African law, as explained in S v Mokgethi,1990 (1) SA 32 (A).39J-41B. in particular the flexible criterion whereby the court considers on the basis of policy considerations whether there is a sufficiently close connection between act and consequence.401I-J.
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The court was reluctant to set down hard and fast rules as to what would amount to abuse of process when claims which might conveniently have been brought at an earlier were only made at a later time. Courts need to be mindful not to confuse the fact that a litigant could have brought his claims at an earlier stage with the proposition that he should have done so. Only in the latter case would it be an abuse of process to subsequently litigate those claims. In this case Mr Johnson had given a number of reasons why he did not pursue his personal claims at an earlier time, including impecuniosity, the availability of legal aid, and personal circumstances.
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This rule has no right of existence in South African law, however, as its rigidity is inconsistent with the flexible approach whereby a South African court will consider on the basis of policy considerations whether there is a sufficiently close connection between act and consequence. The impecuniosity of the plaintiff, the court asserted, is merely a fact to be considered together with all other facts. The reasonable foreseeability of damages is not decisive, but it can be used as a subsidiary test in the application of a flexible criterion. The court held that it is dangerous to attempt to distill fixed or generally applicable rules or principles from a process of comparison with other cases.
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There is no room for the employment of the ratio of The Edison in a system where legal causality is determined by asking the following question: Is there a sufficiently close connection between act and consequence? That question has to be answered on the basis of policy considerations and the limits of reasonableness, fairness and justice. The court found that the impecuniosity of the plaintiff as a joint cause of the damage is merely one of the facts which, together with all the other facts of each particular case, has to be taken into consideration in the application of the predominating flexible criterion (the oorheersende elastiese maatstaf)Mokgethi at 40D. in terms of which the court determines whether the defendant should be held liable for the damages in question.14E-F.15E-G.
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