Page:Halsbury Laws of England v1 1907.pdf/305

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— Part

III.

Practice of the Supreme Court.

notice has been given by the Board of Trade (k) exempted arrest and entitled to the privileges of exempted mail ships (/). ,

from

154. The warrant is ordinarily issued as of course, unless a A party, by filing a notice called caveat against an arrest is entered. a precipe for a caveat warrant signed by himself or his solicitor undertaking to enter an appearance in any action which may be commenced against the property the arrest of which it may be desired to prevent, and undertaking to give bail in such action in a sum not exceeding an amount stated in the notice or to pay such sum into the Admiralty Eegistry, may cause a caveat against the issue of a warrant for the arrest of such property to be entered in the Principal Admiralty Eegistry in a book kept there and called the Caveat Warrant Book (m). The due entry of a caveat warrant in the Caveat Warrant Book does not prevent a warrant being taken out for the arrest of the property mentioned in the notice, but the party at whose instance any property in respect of which a caveat is entered is arrested is liable to have the warrant discharged and to be condemned in costs and damages unless he shows to the satisfaction of the judge good and sufficient reason for having taken out It is therefore advisable before taking out the the warrant (/i). warrant to make a search for six months back (o) in the Caveat Warrant Book at the Principal Admiralty Eegistry, or, if the action is proceeding in a district registry, the district registrar should be requested to ascertain from the Principal Admiralty Eegistry whether or not any caveat has been entered against the issue of a warrant for the arrest of the property proceeded against (p). These precautions are the more necessary because a plaintiff who, after the entry of a caveat warrant and before bail has been put in, takes out a warrant of arrest, may be condemned in costs and damages notwithstanding that the property before it was arrested was not under the control of the Court and was free to leave the jurisdiction at any time (q). (Jc) The Mail Ships Eules, 1892 (Feb. 27, 1892), printed in Statutory Eules and Orders for 1892, pp. 741 751. (/) See Mail Ships Act, 1891 (54 & 55 Vict. c. 31), s. 5. (m) E. S. C, Ord. 29, rr. 11, 12. The form of the notice or praecipe is to be found inE. S. C., Appendix A, Part II., No. 18. See also E. S. 0., Appendix A, Part II., No. 19, for the form of the praecipe to withdraw the caveat.

E. S. C, Ord. 29, r. 18. See E. S. C, Ord. 64, r. 15, whereby in Admiralty actions a caveat, whether against the issue of a warrant, the release of property, or the payment of money out of the Admiralty Eegistry, shall not remain in force for more than six months from the date thereof. The district registrar is bound to make the inquiry, unless the party insists ( p) on the warrant being issued notwithstanding a caveat (E. S. C, Ord. 29, r. 13). The Crimdon, [1900] P. 171. The attention of the Court does not seem {(/) to have been drawn to the point that, as no bail had been given, the plaintiff in arresting the property was only exercising the ordinary right given him by the inherent jurisdiction of the Court of preventing the property being removed out of the jurisdiction before bail had been given, and that by construing Ord. 29, r. 18, as enabling the Court to condemn the plaintiff in costs and damages in these circumstances, the rights of the plaintiff were affected under the authority of what is only a rule of procedure. See British South Africa Compamj V. Companhia de Mozambique, [1893] A. C. 602, per Lord Herschell, at p. 628. The scope of the rule, as a rule of procedure, in altering the older practice of (o)

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