Colin Pearson, Baron Pearson

Colin Hargreaves Pearson, Baron Pearson PC KC CBE (* 28. July 1899 in Minnedosa , Manitoba , Canada ; † 31 January 1980 in London ) was a British lawyer who most recently as Lord of Appeal in Ordinary , due to the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 as Life Peer was also a member of the House of Lords .

Life

Lawyer and Ministerial Officer

Pearson, whose father Ernest William Pearson was also a lawyer, moved with his parents to Great Britain in 1906 after attending St Paul's School in London during the First World War, where he served in the Guards Division .

After the war, he studied the classics at Balliol College of Oxford University . After further studies in law , he was admitted to the bar ( Inns of Court ) of Inner Temple in 1924 and then took up a position as a barrister . He first worked in the law firm of Walter Monckton and then in the law firm of William Jowitt , where he focused on common law .

After Jowitt's appointment as Attorney General of England and Wales in 1929, Pearon was his assistant and then legal advisor in the Ministry of Works in 1930 , before he was the recorder of Hythe in 1937 . During the Second World War he worked between 1939 and 1945 in the office of legal advisor ( Solicitor ) of the Treasury ( HM Treasury ).

After the war Pearson began operations as a barrister again and was recognized for his lawyer's merits 1949. Attorney ( King's Counsel appointed).

Judge, Lord Judge and Member of the House of Lords

In 1951 Pearson was judge in the Chamber for Civil Matters ( King's Bench Division ) at the High Court of Justice responsible for England and Wales and held this judge's office until 1960. At the same time, he was beaten to a Knight Bachelor in 1951 and has since been given the suffix "Sir" and also so-called “bencher” of the Inner Temple Bar Association . In addition to serving as a judge at the High Court of Justice, in 1958 he became chairman of a commission to examine the regulations for investments , which gave a final report in 1959 that led to the adoption of the Administration of Justice Act in 1965 .

After Pearson, 1959-1962 Vice-Chairman of the Board of Bedford College was 1960 Chairman of the Restrictive Practices Court is a court for the promotion of economic competition , took place in 1961 his appointment as judge ( Lord Justice of Appeal ) at the Court of Appeal , the Court of Appeal responsible for England and Wales, where he served until 1965. In addition, he was appointed Privy Councilor in 1961 and also acted as chairman of the Law Reform Committee in 1963 . During the strike of the energy workers in 1964 ( Power dispute of 1964 ), Minister of Labor Joseph Godber appointed him chairman of the commission of inquiry and arbitration.

By a letters patent dated February 18, 1965, Pearson was appointed to the nobility and worked as a life peer with the title Baron Pearson , of Minnedosa in Canada and of the Royal Borough of Kensington, under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 , as a member of the House of Lords until his resignation on September 30, 1974 as Lord Judge ( Lord of Appeal in Ordinary ). In 1974 he was also Treasurer ( Treasurer ) of the Bar Association of the Inner Temple.

During this time he also worked as a mediator on various strikes, such as the seafarers 'strike in 1966, the conflict in civil aviation between 1967 and 1968, the dispute at British Steel in 1968 and the shipyard workers' strike in 1970. Baron Pearson also acted between 1971 and 1972 as chairman of the arbitration committee for the assessment of teachers' salaries.

Most recently in 1973 he was chairman of the Pearson Commission named after him ( Royal Commission on Civil Liability and Personal Injury ). As a result of the final report submitted by this commission in 1978, extensive reforms were carried out in the English and Welsh Tort Law .

Significant judgments as Lord Judge

As Lord Judge, Baron Pearson participated in several significant judgments such as:

• Anisminic v Foreign Compensation Commission (1969): In this important case on English administrative law, the Lord Justices ruled that any error of law committed by a public authority would invalidate the decision made and that an exclusion clause would not release the courts from their jurisdiction of judicial review.
• Baker v Willoughby (1969): This case dealt with questions of causation in tort law as well as the breaking of the causal chain ( novus actus interveniens ).
• Dorset Yacht Co Ltd v Home Office (1970): This Tort Law case resulted in a landmark ruling on negligence through the extension of UK law under which circumstances a court would review due diligence .

Web links

• Colin Pearson at Hansard (English)
• Entry in Leigh Rayment Peerage
• Lords of Appeal in Ordinary 1876-2009 in Peerages