CA21110 - PMA: Meaning of plant & machinery: Setting

The next case about the meaning of plant which you may find useful was a case involving a claim under the War Damage Act 1943, J Lyons and Co. Ltd. v Attorney General (1944), page 281. The War Damage Act gave compensation for damage to land and defined land as including buildings or plant. The company claimed that some lamps that were destroyed by enemy action were plant and so qualified for compensation under the War Damage Act. The lamps were not part of the building and so the question was whether they were plant.

The judge, Uthwatt J, rejected the claim. He said that the question that had to be decided was whether the lamps were part of the setting in which the business was carried on or part of the apparatus used for carrying on the business. He decided that the lamps were not plant because they were part of the general setting in which the business was carried on. They were not apparatus with which the business was carried on.

Yarmouth v France showed that the business premises are not plant. The J Lyons case showed that assets that are not part of the business premises but are still part of the setting would not normally be plant. The setting is not generally apparatus with which the trade is carried on.