Studying Re Grove-Grady as a law student convinced Francesca Quint that charity law was her favourite subject.

In Re Grove-Grady, the court held that it was not charitable to provide a nature sanctuary without human management because trusts for the benefit of animals were only charitable because of the moral lessons they provided to human beings.

Francesca says: “The court held that if all the animals and birds were living together without human management the big animals would eat the little animals and there would be no moral lessons for human beings. Charity law later developed so that it is now charitable to provide a nature sanctuary, not because it promotes animal welfare but because it preserves the environment…”

You can read the full case summary here.

Re Grove-Grady is reported at [1929] 1 Ch 557.

Favourite Cases is a Radcliffe Chambers project for August 2020, which takes a look at interesting and important chancery and commercial decisions.