GOODWILL OF HOTEL

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 171, 15 April 1933, Page 12

GOODWILL OF HOTEL

Held Not to be Rent APPEAL COURT DECISION Holding that the ease was wrongly decided in the court below, the Court of Appeal, in a reserved judgment delivered recently, allowed an appeal brought by Ernest Charles Heel against Leo Patrick O’Neill. The appeal was from a decision of Mr. Justice MacGregor delivered on August' 25, 1932. The Court of Appeal was asked, in .substance, whether £3OOO paid by a hotel lessee, Bridget O’Neill, for the goodwill of a hotel business, the Railway Hotel, Inglewood, could be held to be rent paid in respect of land within meaning of section 31 of the National Expenditure Adjustment Act, 1932, so as to make applicable the reduction provided for by that Act. The Court of Appeal held that as the Legislature had not provided that premiums or bonuses or other like payments made in respect of the goodwill of a busi-’ ness should be deemed to be rent, such payments could not come within the words of the section. For that reason, in the opinion the court, the case was wrongly decided in the court below, and it. wns of the opinion that, the appeal should be allowed with costs on the middle scale ns from a distance. The court, which was unanimous in its conclusions, consisted of the Chief Justice fSir Michael Myers), Mr. Justice Reed. Mr. Justice Ostler, and Mr. Justice Smith. At the hearing Mr. C. IT. Weston appeared for appellant, and Mr. P. H. Quillinm for respondent.