Re Gillingham Bus Disaster Fund
Where a fund raised from the public for a purpose has a surplus, the surplus is held on resulting trust for the donors, even if they are anonymous.
Facts
A bus ran into a column of Royal Marine cadets in Gillingham in 1951, killing 24 of them and injuring others. The mayors of the towns set up a fund to pay for funeral expenses, to care for the injured cadets, and for such worthy cause or causes in memory of the boys who lost their lives as the mayors may determine. The fund raised about £9,000, much from anonymous donors in street collections, and only part of it was needed for the first two purposes. The question was what should happen to the surplus.
Legal principle
Harman J held that the surplus was held on resulting trust for the donors. The third purpose was not charitable, so the surplus could not be applied cy-près. The donors had not intended to part with their money out and out, but only for the stated purposes, so when those purposes failed, the money resulted to them, even though many could not be found. It did not go to the Crown as bona vacantia. The money was paid into court to await claims. The decision has been criticised, and the courts have since been more willing to find that donors parted with their money absolutely.
Related cases on resulting trusts
- Re Abbott Fund Trusts [1900] 2 Ch 326
- Air Jamaica Ltd v Charlton [1999] 1 WLR 1399
- Barclays Bank Ltd v Quistclose Investments Ltd [1970] AC 567
- Bennet v Bennet (1879) 10 Ch D 474
- Dyer v Dyer (1788) 2 Cox Eq 92
- Fowkes v Pascoe (1875) LR 10 Ch App 343
- Hussey v Palmer [1972] 1 WLR 1286
- Laskar v Laskar [2008] EWCA Civ 347, [2008] 1 WLR 2695
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