ON 10 DECEMBER 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN General Assembly.
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
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Bank of NSW v Commonwealth (“Bank Nationalisation case”) [1948] HCA 7
ON 11 AUGUST 1948, the High Court of Australia delivered Bank of NSW v Commonwealth (“Bank Nationalisation case”) [1948] HCA 7; (1948) 76 CLR 1 (11 August 1948).
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1948/7.html
The High Court held that the nationalisation of banks was beyond the Commonwealth’s constitutional power.
The Banking Act 1947 (Cth) provided that the Commonwealth Bank could acquire shares in private banks, whether by agreement or compulsion. The effect of the legislation would be to grant an monopoly to the Commonwealth Bank, owned by the Commonwealth.
The Banking Act 1947 was held to be invalid on a number of grounds including (1) that it infringed the s92 constitutional guarantee of freedom of interstate trade, commerce and intercourse by compelling the States and their agencies to bank with the Commonwealth Bank and (2) the proposed acquisition was not on just terms as required under s51(xxxi).
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South African apartheid begins
ON 26 MAY 1948, the policy of apartheid was introduced to South Africa.
Apartheid was developed through a series of Acts of parliament including the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act 1949, Population Registration Act 1950, Group Areas Act 1950, Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act 1951, Suppression of Communism Act 1950, Bantu Education Act 1950, Bantu Authorities Act 1951, Reservation of Separate Amenities Act 1953, Natives Urban Areas Act 1952, Native Labour Act 1953 and Black Homeland Citizenship Act 1970.
BA, LLB, Grad Cert Leg Prac, Acc Spec Lawyer
1948 | McCollum v Board of Education
ON THIS DAY in 1948, the US Supreme Court delivered McCollum v Board of Education 333 US 203 (1948).
Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation [1947] EWCA Civ 1
ON 10 NOVEMBER 1947, the England and Wales Court of Appeal delivered Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation [1947] EWCA Civ 1 (10 November 1947).
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/1947/1.html
A court will interfere with an administrative decision if (1) the decision maker took irrelevant matters into consideration (2) the decision maker failed to take into consideration matters which it ought to have considered and (3) the decision was so unreasonable that no reasonable decision maker would have made it.
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Seven Up Company v OT Ltd [1947] HCA 59
Seven Up Company v OT Ltd [1947] HCA 59; (1947) 75 CLR 203 (19 August 1947).
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1947/59.html
The Seven Up Company, the US owner of the US soft drink trademark “7 UP” brought a motion to remove the Australian owned name “8 Up” from the Australian register of trademarks. Williams J dismissed the motion and an appeal to the Full Court was dismissed.
Per Williams J:
“… in the absence of fraud it is not unlawful for a trader to become the registered proprietor under the Trade Marks Act of a mark which has been used, however extensively, by another trader as a mark for similar goods in a foreign country, provided the foreign mark has not been used at all in Australia at the date of the application for registration. But the position is different if at that date the mark has become identified with the goods of the foreign trader in Australia because those goods have been brought into Australia by the foreign trader himself or by some importer or in some other manner. The court frowns upon any attempt by one trader to appropriate the mark of another trader although that trader is a foreign trader and the mark has only been used by him in a foreign country. It therefore seizes upon a very small amount of use of the foreign mark in Australia to hold that it has become identified with and distinctive of the goods of the foreign trader in Australia. It is not then a mark which another trader is entitled to apply to register under the Trade Marks Act because it is not his property but the property of the foreign trader. The registrar is entitled to refuse to register the mark for such goods. If it has been registered the court may rectify the register on the ground that the mark is wrongly entered on the register.”
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Melbourne v Commonwealth (“Melbourne Corporation case”) or (“State Banking Case”) [1947] HCA 26
ON 13 AUGUST 1947, the High Court of Australia delivered Melbourne v Commonwealth (“State Banking case”) [1947] HCA 26; (1947) 74 CLR 31 (13 August 1947), also known as the Melbourne Corporation case.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1947/26.html
The Commonwealth attempted to nationalise Australian banks through the enactment of legislation including s48 of the Banking Act 1945 (Cth). The legislation was enacted under the Commonwealth Parliament’s banking powers under s51 (xxxi) of the Commonwealth Constitution.
The High Court declared s48 to be constitutionally invalid. The court implied, from the federal nature of the Constitution, limitations on the Commonwealth’s express powers. Those limitations were (1) prohibition of discriminatory burdens or disabilities on the States and (2) prohibition of making laws of general application which operate to destroy or curtail the continued existence of the States or their ability to govern.
Sydney, Australia
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1947 | Constitution of Japan
ON THIS DAY in 1947, the Constitution of Japan was enacted.
Bird v Perpetual Executors and Trustees Association of Australia Limited [1946] HCA 52
ON 20 DECEMBER 1946, the High Court of Australia delivered Bird v Perpetual Executors and Trustees Association of Australia Limited [1946] HCA 52; (1946) 73 CLR 140 (20 December 1946).
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/high_ct/73clr140.html
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Sydney Solicitors
ON 25 NOVEMBER 1946, the High Court of Australia delivered Penfolds Wines Pty Ltd v Elliott [1946] HCA 46; (1946) 74 CLR 204 (25 November 1946)
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1946/46.html
Mr Elliott used of Penfolds’ empty wine bottles to carry other wine.
Dixon J (at 229) said:
“But nothing in the course pursued by the respondent in receiving and filling bottles and returning them could possibly amount to the tort of conversion. The essence of conversion is a dealing with a chattel in a manner repugnant to the immediate right of possession of the person who has the property or special property in the chattel. It may take the form of a disposal of the goods by way of sale, or pledge or other intended transfer of an interest followed by delivery, of the destruction or change of the nature or character of the thing, as for example, pouring water into wine or cutting the seals from a deed, or of an appropriation evidenced by refusal to deliver or other denial of title. But damage to the chattel is not conversion, nor is use, nor is a transfer of possession otherwise than for the purpose of affecting the immediate right to possession, nor is it always conversion to lose the goods beyond hope of recovery. An intent to do that which would deprive “the true owner” of his immediate right to possession or impair it may be said to form the essential ground of the tort.”
The tort of conversion generally concerns a defendant’s intentional dealing with goods in a manner inconsistent with or repugnant to the plaintiff’s ownership of the goods: per Latham CJ at 217 – 221, Dixon J (Starke J agreeing) at 228 – 230, McTiernan J at 234 – 235 and Williams J at 239 – 244.
An act repugnant or inconsistent to the terms of the bailment, or consistent only to treat the goods as his or her own, terminates the bailment resulting in possession revesting to the owner who can sue the bailee in trover: per Latham CJ at pp 214 and 217-8, Dixon J at p 227, McTiernan J at p 233 and Williams J at pp 241-2.
Sydney, Australia
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