Recently, I have been doing some work on the appeal of mayhem – it’s one of my research leave projects (for a brief intro., see this post). The main content of this will be a survey of medieval material, but I am also very interested in seeing later attitudes to it, and what became of the appeal, and the concept of mayhem/maim after the medieval period. This morning turned up the following little gems …
- You can maim a wall. My interest is mayhem in the sense of particular sorts of damage to human bodies, though of course I am aware that there are less specific uses of the word than that encountered in appeals of mayhem. One comes across more general ideas of physical injury to humans in various places, and the ‘maiming’ of animals, in legal sources. Still, I was a little surprised to see that some leasehold covenants include promises by the lessee not to ‘maim’ walls – see Creative Foundation v Dreamland Leisure Ltd and others [2015] EWHC 2556 Ch. This certainly goes back to the 19th C. Don’t suppose I will be able to stop myself seeing how far back I can chase it …
- Disappointingly, there was not a judge called Mayhem J. Got very excited when a Lexis Library search suggested the existence of such a person – wouldn’t that have been splendid? Sadly, following the link to Sheffield Masonic Hall Co Ltd v Sheffield Corpn [1932] 2 Ch 17, I saw that it was in fact Maugham J.
- Much of criminal law found to be tedious … I do love the ambition and casual attitude of collections of the whole common law in one book, and was looking up a few references in Every Man His Own Lawyer (1776) when I came across the following passage:
Since rather a lot of serious crime is statute-based, I suppose that’s you told, Criminal Lawyers!
GS
30/10/2021
Image: a wall, in perfect health. Photo by Joe Woods on Unsplash