Thomas Sutton was a coal mine owner and moneylender, as well as the Master of Ordnance for the North of England, a military position.

Sutton's other heirs challenged the bequest by arguing that the charity was improperly constituted.

In a full hearing of the King's Bench, it was held that the incorporation was valid, as was the subsequent foundation of the charity and so the transfer of property to it, including the nomination of a master of the charity to receive the donation, was not void.

Notably, in Hazell v Hammersmith and Fulham LBC [1992] 2 AC 1, Lord Templeman referred to it, and although he acknowledged it to be good law, he also noted that to modern eyes the language was so impenetrable that most lawyers simply took it on faith that the case stood for the principle for which it is cited.

He summarised the ratio decidendi of the case thus: That report, although largely incomprehensible in 1990, has been accepted as "express authority" that at common law it is an incident to a corporation to use its common seal for the purpose of binding itself to anything which a natural person could bind himself and to deal with its property as a natural person might deal with his own.