Hughes v Metropolitan Railway Co
A party who leads another to believe that strict rights will not be enforced cannot enforce them without fair notice.
Facts
In October 1874 a landlord gave a tenant six months' notice to carry out repairs to some houses, failing which the lease could be forfeited. In November the tenant wrote suggesting that the landlord might buy the lease, saying that repairs would be deferred while negotiations continued. The parties negotiated until December, when the negotiations broke down. The tenant did no repairs during the negotiations. At the end of the original six months, in April 1875, the landlord brought proceedings to forfeit the lease. The tenant completed the repairs in June.
Legal principle
The House of Lords held that the landlord could not forfeit the lease. Lord Cairns LC said that if parties who have entered into definite and distinct terms involving certain legal results afterwards enter upon a course of negotiation that has the effect of leading one of them to suppose that the strict rights arising under the contract will not be enforced, or will be kept in suspense, the person who otherwise might have enforced those rights will not be allowed to enforce them where it would be inequitable to do so, having regard to the dealings between the parties. The six months' notice period was treated as running again from the time the negotiations ended.
Related cases on consideration and promissory estoppel
- Central London Property Trust Ltd v High Trees House Ltd [1947] KB 130
- Chappell & Co Ltd v Nestlé Co Ltd [1960] AC 87
- Collier v P & MJ Wright (Holdings) Ltd [2007] EWCA Civ 1329, [2008] 1 WLR 643
- Combe v Combe [1951] 2 KB 215
- Currie v Misa (1875) LR 10 Ex 153
- D & C Builders Ltd v Rees [1966] 2 QB 617
- Foakes v Beer (1884) 9 App Cas 605
- Glasbrook Bros Ltd v Glamorgan County Council [1925] AC 270
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