Reversing the Hastings-Bass rule, by Lisa Carkeek
The decision of the Court of Appeal in Pitt v Holt; Futter v Futter [2011] EWCA Civ 197, [2011] All ER (D) 101 (Mar) was handed down on 9 March 2011. The appeals, in the words of Longmore LJ “provide examples of that comparatively rare instance of the law taking a seriously wrong turn, of that wrong turn being not infrequently acted on over a twenty year period but this court being able to reverse that error and put the law back on the right course”. The court considered two key principles: the Hastings-Bass rule and the principle of mistake.
The Hastings-Bass rule
The principle laid down in Re Hastings-Bass [1974] 2 All ER 193, [1974] 2 WLR 904 was that: “… where a trustee is given a discretion as to some matter under which he acts in good faith, the court should not interfere with his action notwithstanding that it does not have the full effect which he intended, unless (i) what he has achieved is unauthorised by the power conferred upon him, or
