Ex-Manager Of Motor Firm Proceeds For Possession Of Tools

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 96, 7 November 1947, Page 5

Ex-Manager Of Motor Firm Proceeds For Possession Of Tools

Magistrate Accepts Part Of Claim Only

Proceeding against Mac Lean Motors Ltd., of which firm he is an ex-manager, for the possession of tools and chattels or £9B/15/6, Percy Breckon (Mr B. S. Barry) was awarded £35 and costs totalling £7/15/- by Mr E. L. Walton S.M. in the Magistrate’s Court at Whakatane on Tuesday. Mr Julius Hogben conducted the defence.

The plaintiff, who gave evidence that he had put £SOO in cash into the business when it had been started by the late Mr Mac Lean and himself, said he had been the manager of the business after Mr Mac Lean’s death until 1946, during which year he had been replaced by a man called Hammond, to whom Mrs MacLean had transferred some shares. He said that, until immediately before the shareholders’ meeting at which his services had been dispensed with, he had not known what was pending, and alleged that Hammond had denied him and his solicitor the right to go into the garage to identify property which he said he had not been given a chance to take away when he left. He now wanted the Court to award him his belongings, or their value in cash, which he claimed was £9B/15/6. ' The defence submitted that there was considerable doubt that some of the property claimed was the plaintiff’s. Certain items the defence was prepared to admit were his, and these, Mr Hogben said, had already been offered to him before the action was brought. Mr Hogben said it could not be suggested that the safe (one of the items claimed) was part of the equipment of an employee or even a manager. He suggested that the plaintiff had shown considerable feeling against the company, but had not put forward the claim until five months after his dismissal from the manager’s job.

The Magistrate said he was satisfied on the evidence that the plaintiff had a just claim to some tools, but it was impossible on the proven facts before him to be specific about the items. He thought £35 would cover the items of which the plaintiff’s ownership had been established.