[2004] EWHC 2771 (Ch)

Innocent claimants who had established a proprietary right to funds in a mixed bank account that had been frozen as a result of fraud would in the circumstances receive payment in proportion to their contributions. To adopt the fiction of making payments out in the order in which they had been made into the account in accordance with the rule in Clayton's Case (Devaynes v Noble: Clayton's case (1816) 1 Mer. 572 would be to apportion a common misfortune through a test that bore no relation to the justice of the case, and that need only be applied when it was convenient and could do broad justice.

Ch D (Lawrence Collins J)

30/11/2004