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 English Courts and Foreign Lunatics.

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ENGLISH COURTS AND FOREIGN LUNATICS. By A. Wood Renton. WITHIN the past few years, there has 666) that there had been no judicial declara been a remarkable development of tion of lunacy. But they also held that, case law in England with reference to the the funds having been paid into court, the court, acting as trustee, was justified in pay powers of the English courts over the prop ing over to the master anything which the erty of lunatics resident out of their juris diction. As America may at any moment competent authority in New South Wales de be obliged to make her contribution to cided to be necessary for the maintenance further developments of the same kind, a or benefit of the patient, and that a trustee brief statement of the facts and results of would be entitled in such cases to make similar payments. The judgments in In re recent authorities may be of interest to read Barlow's will are rather obscure (for an ers of the Green Bag. The cases to which we refer may most analysis of them see Wood Renton on Lun conveniently be examined in order of date. acy, p. 449) and in view of later cases need The first is In re Barlow's will, 1887, 36 not longer detain us. It will have been ob served that it did not arise under the English Chan. Div. 287. There the Master in Lun acy appointed by the Supreme court of Lunacy Acts. The next case is In re Brown New South Wales, under the colonial Lunacy (ubi sup.) also an Australian case — it Act, 42, Vict. c. 7, applied for a transfer to arose under the Victorian Act, 54 Vict. No. him ofcertain funds belonging to a lunatic, and 1113 — and differed from hi re Barlow's will paid into court under the Trustee Relief act. in two important particulars. The lady had The colonial statute — following a model been declared lunatic; and the application to the English court was made under sec. which is of common occurrence in the Brit ish dependencies and possessions, and of 134 of the Lunacy Act, 1890. That section which there are continental analogues as is in the following terms : " Where any well — drew a distinction between " insane stock is standing in the name of or vested in a person residing out of the jurisdiction persons " and " insane patients," all per sons detained in asylums, but not judicially of the high court, the Judge in Lunacy, upon declared lunatic and, in the case of the proof to his satisfaction that the person has been declared lunatic and that his personal latter class, conferred on the Master in Lun acy wide powers of managing their property. estate has been vested in a person appointed — e. g., the right to sue for (within the for the management thereof according to colony) and receive debts, without, however, the law of the place where he is residing, may order some fit person to make such "vesting" the property in him in the tech nical sense which that term bears in English transfer of the stock or any part thereof to law. The lady in this case was an "insane or into the name of the person so ap patient," and the questions for the court were pointed or otherwise and also to receive and (l) whether the master's claim to a transfer pay over the dividends thereof, as the judge as of right could be sustained, and (2), if it thinks fit." could not, whether any and what, order Except in the points above indicated the ought to be made. The Lords Justices an facts of the two cases were similar; and in swered the first question in the negative on In re Brown as well as in In re Barlow's will the ground (see In re Brown, [1895] 2 ch. no technical " vesting " of the property in