ENGINEER CLAIMS DAMAGES

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21418, 9 March 1935, Page 8

ENGINEER CLAIMS DAMAGES

WRONG FU L DISMISS A L ALLEGED ACTION IN SUPREME COURT | THE PRESS Special Service.] WELLINGTON, March 8. Wrongful dismissal is alleged against William Cable and Co., Ltd., by James Marshall, a superintendent engineer, of Wellington, in an action commenced in the Supreme Court on February 28, before the Chief Justice (the Rt. Hon. Sir Michael Myers). Marshall claims £3OOO damages, and, | second, an order that accounts be taken of the earnings of the defendant company's business and that he be given judgment for the share of the net profits to which he contends he is entitled under an agreement with the company. Mr O. C. Mazcngarb and Mr H. J. V. James are counsel for the plaintiff, and Mr J. F. B. Stevenson for the defendant company. The plaintiff alleged there was an agreement in writing, dated June 14, 1928, by which he was to serve the defendant company for five years, and that after the completion of that five years the company exercised- the option it had on his services &nd enT gaged him for a further five years. He was to receive a salary of £520 a year and participate on a certain basis in the net profits of the company. Until January 18 last he remained in the company's employment. On that date, he alleged, he was wrongfully dismissed. As a result he had lost the salary and the share of the profits which he would have earned under the agreement from the date of his dismissal until June 24, 1938. The hearing of the case was continued to-day. Allegations Denied Giving evidence after the conclusion of the case for the defence, Marshall denied the allegations of neglect or incompetence in connexion with various engineering contracts undertaken by the firm. He denied that he demanded any bonus before going on with the work on the steamer Golden Harvest. Ho had been working without any real difference until the question of bonuses arose at the end of the financial year, when he refused £SO as a bonus on the year's alleged profit of £IOOO. Addressing the court, Mr Stevenson, counsel for the defendant, said the defendant alleged that the plaintiff, while on the way to the Golden Harvest .iob in James Cable's motor-car. had demanded a bonus of £250 before he would commence the job. It was strange, under those conditions, for a man to put such a request. The Chief Justice (the Rt. Hon. Sir Michael Myers): No honourable firm would keep in its employ a man who is what an ordinary citizen would call a blackmailer. Even if by dismissing him they risked an action for damages, they should dismiss him immediately. Counsel agreed that such circumstances as he alleged amounted to a kind of blackmail. Even if not legal blackmail, it was what an ordinary citizen would call blackmail. His Honour's Comment A little later His Honour said there would be justification, under such circumstances as counsel alleged, for any man being dismissed immediately. Any self-respecting employer would immediately dismiss such a man. "Yet Cable did not dismiss him, but kept him on. There was not a word in the minutes. Although all pre- | vious matters are harked back to and put in long minutes, there is not a i word of this." I The case is unfinished.