LIABILITY OF TRUSTEES.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 3140, 5 June 1879, Page 3

LIABILITY OF TRUSTEES.

The Lord Chancellor and several other noble and learneJ lords, who form the highest Court of Appeal in England, sat specially in tbe House of Peers, to give judgment in the important cases which came up from the Court of Session, in Scotland, in reference to the contributorieß to the funds of the City of Glasgow Bank. It had been settled years ago by the House of Lords on appeal,

n tbe case of another Scotch Bank,

that trustees were personally liable to pay any calls that might be made on shares which they held in trust, and since that time it has been tho practice of the Scotch Banks to permit to be made in their registers peculiar entries which specifically described certain shares as being held by certain persons in trust for some other person, and this

it was hoped would relieve them of a personal responsibility. However, when the opinion of the Scotch Judges had again to be taken on the point this year they held that the trustees themselves must pay if the trust estate could not, and the House of Lords has

now for a second time declared that that is the law, and that all trustees are liable to pay, irrespective altogether of the solvency or extent of the trust estate. For this conclusion the several law lords gave very excellent, reason 3, but it is uot necessary to refer to more than one, uamely, that if shares held in trust were relieved from liability, no shares would be held in any other manner, so that shareholders would by a rough and ready process arrive at thatcondition of limited liability, which has been much agitated since tbe successive failures caused such a scare.