The K-Zone: Associated Provincial Picture Houses v Wednesbury Corporation (1948)

[1948] 1 KB 223. The claimant cinema operators were granted a licence by the defendant local authority to operate a cinema, provided that no children under 15 were admitted. They sought a declaration that this condition was unacceptable, and outside the power of the authority to impose. The court held that for it to intervene in such a matter, the condition would have to be so unreasonable that no reasonable authority would ever consider imposing it. Despite the inconvenient and bizarre nature of the condition, it did not fall into that category and hence the claim failed. This case gives rise to the expression `Wednesbury unreasonable', meaning `so unreasonable that no reasonable person could contemplate it'.

CaseLaw