Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 05:31:30 -0500

From: Daved Muttart

Subject: Use of trust funds to pay lawyers

Not having access to the case, I'm presuming that the money belonged to the plaintiff and the defendant was holding it in trust. The permission to spend the £5,000 could be supported on two bases. First it was an award of costs, which would mean that plaintiff owes defendant money; here the court would be facilitating execution of its judgment. Alternately the £5,000 could be granted as trustee's fees dealing with a controversy respecting the subject matter of the trust. Does this make sense?

Daved Muttart

http://www.interlog.com/~dmm

on 1/19/04 5:53 AM, Andrew Tettenborn wrote:

If I claim money in your hands is held on simple, bare trust for me, should you be allowed to use the alleged trust funds to pay your own lawyers? Logically I'd have thought the answer was no: how can a court give you permission to commit a glaring breach of trust? Yet in Brown v Rice [2003] EWHC 2155 (Ch), where this arose, a court varied an injunction against disposal and gave the defendant permission to spend £5,000 of the (£84,000) fund on her legal defence.

Am I being stupid, or is there something odd about this?

<<<< Previous Message  ~  Index  ~  Next Message >>>>>