Picture an immensely powerful sports car built circa 1950 and offered for sale in mint condition. Now, if the offer is made to the world at large, you could say that the car was dangerous by today’s standards.
But would it be right, as a matter of language, to say that the car was “in a dangerous state”? Presumably not. All depends upon how it is driven.
Semantically at least, a similar poser was set for the House of Lords in Birmingham City Council v Oakley [2000] EGCS 144. The issue was whether a council house could be described, in the terms of section 79 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, as “premises in such a state as to be prejudicial to health” – an expression lifted from a string of public health enactments stretching back to 1846.
Designed, like many others, to the post-Coronation Street standards acceptable at the time, the house possessed a very small WC, which was accessible from the kitchen. To reach the nearest hand-washing basin it was necessary to cross the kitchen and go into the bathroom. It was accepted that many young users would make do, if at all, with the kitchen sink. The Court of Appeal had held that the magistrates were entitled to find that, because of the risk of cross-infection, the house amounted to a statutory nuisance.
The House of Lords (Lords Steyn and Clyde dissenting) allowed the council’s appeal. Semantically, the majority could not find the alleged “state” in a layout that was not intrinsically harmful. More importantly, the court was unwilling, as a matter of policy, to bend the words used by parliament, where to do so would cast a heavy financial burden on council and other major landlords.
At a deeper level of analysis, Lord Hoffmann drew a telling distinction between: (a) adding new content to a legal concept (legitimate); and (b) manipulating the concept to fit a new set of circumstances (not so, without very good reason). The acceptance of that distinction presumably explains why no mention was made of their lordships’ decision in Fitzpatrick v Sterling Housing Association [1999] EGCS 125, where, it may be recalled, the expression “member of the family”, as used in a series of Rent Acts, was held to include the survivor of a long-standing homosexual relationship.
Picture an immensely powerful sports car built circa 1950 and offered for sale in mint condition. Now, if the offer is made to the world at large, you could say that the car was dangerous by today’s standards.
But would it be right, as a matter of language, to say that the car was “in a dangerous state”? Presumably not. All depends upon how it is driven.
Semantically at least, a similar poser was set for the House of Lords in Birmingham City Council v Oakley [2000] EGCS 144. The issue was whether a council house could be described, in the terms of section 79 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, as “premises in such a state as to be prejudicial to health” – an expression lifted from a string of public health enactments stretching back to 1846.
Designed, like many others, to the post-Coronation Street standards acceptable at the time, the house possessed a very small WC, which was accessible from the kitchen. To reach the nearest hand-washing basin it was necessary to cross the kitchen and go into the bathroom. It was accepted that many young users would make do, if at all, with the kitchen sink. The Court of Appeal had held that the magistrates were entitled to find that, because of the risk of cross-infection, the house amounted to a statutory nuisance.
The House of Lords (Lords Steyn and Clyde dissenting) allowed the council’s appeal. Semantically, the majority could not find the alleged “state” in a layout that was not intrinsically harmful. More importantly, the court was unwilling, as a matter of policy, to bend the words used by parliament, where to do so would cast a heavy financial burden on council and other major landlords.
At a deeper level of analysis, Lord Hoffmann drew a telling distinction between: (a) adding new content to a legal concept (legitimate); and (b) manipulating the concept to fit a new set of circumstances (not so, without very good reason). The acceptance of that distinction presumably explains why no mention was made of their lordships’ decision in Fitzpatrick v Sterling Housing Association [1999] EGCS 125, where, it may be recalled, the expression “member of the family”, as used in a series of Rent Acts, was held to include the survivor of a long-standing homosexual relationship.
