Estoppel case law

What is detrimental reliance? Estoppel forms part of the rules of equity, which were originally administered in the Chancery courts. Estoppel in English law is a doctrine that may be used in certain situations to prevent a person from relying upon certain rights, or upon a set of facts ( e.g. words said or actions performed) which is different from an earlier set of facts. While Bristol Combined Court was floode HHJ Matthews, an academic judge, heard and gave judgment (at the Rolls Building) in two proprietary estoppel cases of note: James v James EWHC , and Smyth-Tyrrell v Bowden EWHC 1(ch).

A recent case in the law of proprietary estoppel The law of proprietary estoppel remains a difficult are area of law , which continues to develop many years after it first evolved after the Second World War. A guide to estoppel.

This note explains what estoppel is and outlines the different types of estoppel and how they should be used. It includes tips on deciding which type of estoppel may be relevant and pleading estoppel. The rationale behind estoppel is to prevent injustice owing to inconsistency or Fraud. There are two general types of estoppel : equitable and legal. The High Trees Case is a decision in English contract law that reaffirmed the concept of the promissory estoppel.

In some instances, it can stop a person going back on a promise, which is not supported by consideration. The international rule of estoppel has a historic basis both in Anglo-American Common Law (known as judicial precedent or judge-made law, or case law) and in the European civil law systems, which have an analogous concept of “preclusion” or “foreclusion”. Nonetheless, international estoppel differs from its Common and Civil Law ancestors.

Essentially, equitable estoppel is a method of preventing someone from going back on his word in a court of law.

For example, equitable estoppel would be granted to a defendant if the plaintiff previously gave his permission for the defendant to do something, and then sued the defendant once he did. As confirmed and clarified by the courts in a recent construction case, estoppel by convention means that a party is prevente or is “estopped”, from arguing a point due to the way the parties have acted. It can arise when parties to a contract act on an assumed state of the law or the facts. The principle of estoppel however may allow a promise to be enforced even though these requirements are not satisfied. The development of the concept of “promissory estoppel ” in contract law has led to the proposition that a court may decide that a “contract” has come into being even though the traditional rules for contract formation have not been.

Promissory Estoppel. A rule of evidence or a rule of law that prevents a person from denying the truth of a statement he has made or from denying facts that he has alleged to exist, The denial must have been acted upon (probably to his disadvantage) by the person who wishes to take advantage of the estoppel or his position must have been altered as a result. The case was an appeal against a decision stating that a residential property was held on trust under the terms of which the first £35in equity is held for Ms Liden, the Respondent on the basis of proprietary estoppel , the first time this equity.

The concept of estoppel embraces notions of fairness and reasonableness that in reliance upon strict legal rights being otherwise overridden. The idea of promissory estoppel is that the promisor is barred from arguing that the underlying promise at the heart of the case should not be legally upheld. Although as a result he did not need to decide Mr Thorpe’s proprietary estoppel claim, the judge held that Mr Thorpe would in the alternative also have been entitled to the same interest in the property as a result of proprietary estoppel. The doctrine of Consideration fails to protect detrimental reliance.

As long as there was no consideration, there was no contract, and thus a person who suffered from a reliance on a promise will not be able to receive remedies. Estoppel is a wide term used to describe the position where one party is stopped by the court from advancing certain propositions because they are contrary to the position which that party has previously taken. This, says the law, is unconscionable behaviour.

Facts: A man (x) transferred his business to his nephew under the condition that his nephew would pay him (x) a certain amount of money, then when he died he would pay that that money to his wife (3rd party). The man died and the nephew refused to pay the widow, so she sued. In his view, the MCA is concerned with assessing the capacity of living individuals and the common law test in Banks v Goodfellow should apply to testamentary capacity in line with previous case law.

The above earlier mentioned cases however make the position very clear that there is. Since the Avon case there have been further developments in this area of the law and the House of Lords has formulated the more flexible defence of “change of position”, which involves a recipient not having to pay any or part of an overpayment if it will be unjust for them to do so. The Court of Appeal decided that the defence of estoppel prevented the Council from recovering the full amount of the overpayments.