Li Tsz Chiu, Hop Chup Suen v Lo Kar Yam
| Jurisdiction | Hong Kong |
| Date | 26 December 1948 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 137 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Hong Kong) |
(Sir Leslie Gibson, C.J., and Reynolds, J.)
War — Enemy Character — Citizens of Occupied Hong Kong in Allied Territory — Law of Hong Kong.
Belligerent Occupation — Effects of — Citizens of Occupied Territory Resident in Unoccupied Territory — Whether Enemy Persons in Relation to Fellow-citizens Remaining in Occupied Territory — Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong — Law of Hong Kong.
War — Effects of — Partnership — Business Carried On in Territory Under Enemy Occupation — Some Partners in Unoccupied Territory — Whether Contract of Partnership Dissolved — Enemy Character — Of Persons in Allied Territory — Relationship of Allied Territory to Territory Under Enemy Occupation — Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong — Law of Hong Kong.
The Facts.—This appeal arose out of a dispute concerning a partnership known as the Stag Hotel Mun Kee. This partnership comprising eight partners was formed on January 24, 1934, for the purpose, as its name implies, of running a hotel known as the Stag Hotel at 148–150 Queen's Road, Central, Hong Kong. During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong two of the partners, Li Tsz Chiu and Hop Chup Suen, went to and remained in Ku Kong in a part, of China which was not under Japanese occupation. It was asserted that the partnership had been dissolved, among other reasons, by operation of law, as soon as the two partners last-named arrived in unoccupied Chinese territory, since they were in enemy territory vis-à-vis the other partners remaining in Hong Kong under Japanese occupation. To support this assertion it was contended that under the common law applicable in Hong Kong a partnership is dissolved if, at any time during a war, one or more partners are in Hong Kong while the other partner or partners are in enemy territory. This principle, it was argued, applied to residents in Allied territory, as if they were in Hong Kong, and to residents in any enemy-occupied territory, even if it be Hong Kong, as if they were in enemy territory itself. In replying to this argument counsel for the plaintiffs submitted that no authority could be cited where the dissolution of a partnership depended on the common law as forming part of the law of the occupied territory in which the partnership was carried on. All the cases which had been brought to the attention of the Court, he argued, had dealt with transactions between partners some of whom resided in local or allied territory and others in enemy or enemy-occupied territory.
Held: that the partnership had not been dissolved by operation of law. Although the common law of England might regard occupied Hong Kong as enemy-occupied territory...
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