Lord Alfred Thompson Denning, popularly known as Lord Denning was, and probably still is, the most famous and moudge that the Common Law has produced in the last century. To say Lord Denning is held in high esteem in the legal community would be a pure understatement just as saying he has left an indelible and unprecedented mark on the development of the English Law is stating the obvious. Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1979 to 1990) described him as “the greatest English judge of modern times.”
Early Life and His Journey onto the Bench
“The great are born in June”, you remember that common saying? Well, Lord Denning wasn’t born in June! Neither was he born in March nor was he born in July. In Denning’s case, the great were really born in January, particularly a year before the dawn of the 20th Century. Like our Niki Tobi (of blessed memory), Lord Denning was also a product of a humble background. He got called to the Bar in 1923, when he was barely 24 years of age! He was conferred with the Silk 15 years later before he was transferred onto the Bench in 1944. Lord Denning didn’t come to the lime light when he was in the Bar, the rays of his formidable intellect came to visibility when he got lifted onto the Bench. His intimidating brilliance coupled with his bold and daring spirit, made him to have an edge, and stand out tall, over his peers and superiors who were with him on the Bench.
Landmark Decisions and Challenging the Status quo
Lord Denning served as a judge for nearly 40 years. Over these years he was said to have delivered around 2000 reported judgments! The clarity of the language he used when delivering judgement was, and may still be, second to none. His boldness to disobey precedents for the sake of enshrining justice marked him out. Below are some of the landmark decisions that he was able to engrave into the Common Law.
• The doctrine of Promissory Estoppel is credited to him even though it was first developed in Hughes v Metropolitan Railway Co (1877) by the House of Lords, but the doctrine slid into oblivion until the time Lord Denning came to its rescue by resurrecting it in the famous High Trees’case .
• The concept of Undue Influence was, in its formative years, shrouded in paucity of clarity. It was Lord Denning who brought all the disparate threads of the doctrine and related doctrines under one coherent umbrella, which he named “Inequality of Bargaining Power.’’
•In Solle v Butcher (1950) he introduced the doctrine of equitable mistake, whereby a contract may be voidable if both parties have made a serious mistake.
•He was also responsible for the introduction of the doctrine of negligent misstatement in Candler v Crane, Christmas & Co (1951) which was later adopted by the House of Lords in Hedley Byrne v. Heller .
He is fondly referred to as “the people’s judge”, and that cannot be unrelated with his uncommon readiness to help out young lawyers or someone with hopeless case. His groundbreaking books are now a reliable source of reference across the Commonwealth (that is a topic for another day). When he was in the Court of Appeal as the Master of the Rolls, the House of Lords overruled him more times than your fingers could count. Nonetheless, that never gave him a cold feet. He stuck to his gun. He died peacefully at the Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester on the 4th of March, 1999 at the age of 100! In Lord Denning’s life, there are lessons for those who want to learn; one of those lessons is that: it pays to be daring, be bold, never be afraid to dissent or to disrupt the status quo, as long as that is what it takes for justice to reign.
Thanks for following through to the end!!!!!
Rodrick Law Waves, Faculty of Law- BSU
ARYAMANYA RODRICK, LLB-3, FACULTY OF LAW, BISHOP STUART UNIVERSITY-UGANDA
We meet in the next series.
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