Page:Public General Statutes 1896.djvu/282

262 Court; and that further provisions should be made with regard to the jurisdiction of the Court :

Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows :

1. This Act may be cited as the Liverpool Court of Passage Act, 1896.

2.If and whenever, at any time after the passing of this Act, the presiding judge of the Court of Passage shall, with the sanction of the authority for the time being empowered to make Rules for the Supreme Court, adopt and apply to the Court of Passage any of the Rules of the Supreme Court, an appeal from any orders made and decisions and directions given by the registrar of the Court under such rules shall be to the presiding judge, and the said authority may by rule provide, in such cases as they may think fit, that, if the presiding judge at the time when such appeal is ready for hearing shall not then be holding a court in the city of Liverpool, the appeal shall be to a judge of the High Court at Chambers, sitting either in London or Liverpool, and such appeal shall be subject to the same rules, regulations, and provisions, as are applicable to an appeal from a district registrar of the Supreme Court.

3.Where any action shall be brought in the Court of Passage which could have been brought in a county court, whereby a less sum than ten pounds is recovered, the plaintiff shall not recover from the defendant a greater amount of costs than he would have been allowed if the action had been brought in a county court.

4.Where in any action of contract brought in the Court of Passage the claim endorsed on the writ is for a less sum than ten pounds, or where such claim, though it originally exceeded ten pounds, is reduced by payment, an admitted set-off, or otherwise, to a less sum than ten pounds, it shall be lawful for either party to the action, if the whole or part of the demand of the plaintiff be contested, to apply to the presiding judge or registrar of the Court at Chambers to order such action to be tried in any county court in which the action might have been tried, and on the hearing of the application the presiding judge or registrar shall order such action to be tried accordingly, and thereupon the plaintiff shall lodge the original writ and the order with the registrar of the county court mentioned in the order, who shall appoint a day for the trial of the action, notice whereof shall be sent by post or otherwise by the registrar of the county court to both parties or their solicitors, and the action and all proceedings therein shall be tried and taken in such county court as if the action had been originally commenced therein.