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The rule in ''Dearle v Hall'' (1828) 3 Russ 1 is an English common law rule to determine priority between competing equitable claims to the same asset. The rule broadly provides that where the equitable owner of an asset purports to dispose of his equitable interest on two or more occasions, and the equities are equal between claimants, the claimant who first notifies the trustee or legal owner of the asset shall have a first priority claim. Although the original decisions related to interests under a trust, most modern applications of the rule relate to the factoring of receivables〔A common scenario is where a company grants a floating charge over all its assets, including its book debts, to a bank, and then the company also purports to factor the book debts to an independent factor. As between the bank and the factor, the person who will have a priority claim to the receivables will generally be the person who first notifies the legal title holder (ie. the debtor) of their claim.〕 or multiple grants of equitable security interests. The rule has been subject to some scathing criticism,〔See for example, ''Legal Aspects Receivable Financing'' (2000), Fidelis Oditah; and ''Commercial Law'' (2nd ed), Roy Goode, in which the author indicates: "It is high time that the rule in ''Dearle v Hall'' was abolished" at page 705.〕 and has been abrogated in a number of common law countries in the Commonwealth. ==History== The rule in ''Dearle v Hall'' has been controversial almost since its inception. In 1893, Lord Macnaghten said "I am inclined to think that the rule in ''Dearle v Hall'' has on the whole produced at least as much injustice as it has prevented."〔''Ward v Duncombe'' () AC 369〕 But this has not stopped it from being extended from a rule regulating the priority of interests in trusts to the regulation of the priority of proprietary interests in debts and other similar intangibles, such as rights under contracts, which is considerably more important in terms of modern commerce. The actual decision in ''Dearle v Hall'', on its facts, is relatively uncontroversial. The beneficial owner of a trust fund assigned it first by way of security to A, and then outright to B, in each case for valuable consideration. A had not given notice of his assignment to the trustees of the fund and, accordingly, when B made enquiries of them, he did not discover the existence of the assignment to A because the trustees were not aware of it. B did give notice of the assignment to the trustees, and then A subsequently also gave notice to them. Plumer MR and, on appeal, Lord Lyndhurst LC each decided that B took priority over A. Judgment was given in favour of B for two reasons. The first was based on the general proposition, that, as between two equitable interests, the first in time will only take priority "if the equities are equal". In this case, by failing to give notice to the trustees, A had allowed the beneficiary of the trust to be able to hold himself out as being the unencumbered owner of the beneficial interest and had therefore enabled the beneficiary to hoodwink B into thinking he had not encumbered it. This is a perfectly straightforward application of the principle that the first in time will only prevail if the equities are equal and is not considered controversial. The second ground for the decision was that A's failure to give notice had left the beneficiary of the trust in apparent possession of the trust fund, and A could not, therefore, rely on this assignment in a dispute with B. This latter ground has been criticised as it appears to be based on the concept of reputed ownership in bankruptcy law, which had never previously been employed in determining priority between competing equitable claims. Nevertheless, on the facts of the case most commentators feel that justice was done; A had allowed the beneficiary to commit a fraud on B, and therefore A should rank behind B. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rule in Dearle v Hall」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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