Cases - Yarmouth v France

Record details

Name

Yarmouth v France

Date

(1887)

Citation

19 QBD 647

Legislation

Employer's Liability Act 1880

Keywords

Capital allowances - plant - apparatus used for purpose of a business - whether an item is plant - Employer's Liability Act 1880, s. 1

Summary

In this case, Lindley LJ said that:

'In its ordinary sense it (that is, plant) includes whatever apparatus is used by a businessman for carrying on his business - not his stock-in-trade which he buys or makes for sale; but all goods and chattels, fixed or movable, live or dead, which he keeps for permanent employment in the business.'

Therefore, a condition that has to be satisfied for an asset to be plant in a business is that it is kept for permanent employment in that business.

Yarmouth v France made it clear that something that is not used for carrying on the business is not plant. It also made it clear that 'plant' excludes stock in trade.