Rex v. Dobkin: The Baptist Church Cellar Murder

man to undertake his treatment, and if the latter delegated his obligations to some servant or agent then he should expect, if that treatment was not carried out in accordance with proper conditions, that the person to whom he went and with shorn he made his contract, to be liable for what had gone wrong. He did not see how a medical man was in any better position than anybody else who employed an agent to carry out his obligation. It would be different if there was a substitution amounting to a change of medical adviser. Mr. Kitchin assumed, a little too easily, that if a person broke his contract the contract was at an end. He was talking on the point of wrongful dismissal. The House of Lords had recently expressed this view in terms which required them not to be so easy in assuming that a fundamental breach put an end to the contract. These views had been restated in a manner which required attention; it was not true to say in aU cases that a fundamental breach of a contract put an end to the contract. Then there was a pitfall, uis., the transfer of appointments. Appointments were of various kinds. Some of them were nothing much more than the transfer of one's goodwill; others were much more important, and there were some which amounted to public offices and it had to be remembered that the transfer, or purported transfer, of a public office, certainly if it was held under the Crown, is an indictable offence. Public appointments must not be sold and solicitors had to bear this in mind when preparing transfers of practices. If a doctor was relinquishing his practice he should obtain advice as to whether the appointment was one for which he could receive money for procuring the appointment of his successor. It would be undesirable if it was assumed that appointments could be transferred in consideration of a payment of money. Mr. Kitchin also said that it was possible to dispense with any of the provisions of the Partnership Act of 1890. If it was put in the form that many of the provisions of the Act could be dispensed with, he would agree, but there were two provisions which could not be eliminated, and one was that the partner was agent for his partner. Another question not dealt with was the obligation of secrecy. It was a large topic and Mr. Kitchin was wise in omitting it, but it was a matter which arose in partnerships and arrangements between medical men. How far were medical men, in dealing with one another, able to teU the secrets of their patients?