£65,000 MINING CLAIM

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28265, 1 May 1957, Page 19

£65,000 MINING CLAIM

Hearing Resumed At Westport (New Zealand Press Association) WESTPORT, April 30. During the hearing of the mining claim which was resumed in the Supreme Court at Westport today there were frequent clashes between senior counsel for the parties, Sir Wilfrid Sim, Q.C., for the plaintiffs (Thomas Moynihan and Wilfred J. Slee) and Dr. O. C. Mazengarb, Q.C., for the defendant, the Crown.

The plaintiffs are seeking £65,000 from the Crown for breach of contract arising from alleged cancellation of their mining lease at Stockton while the Crown is counter-claiming for £11,200 for damage to property arising from plantiff’s mining operations.

Mr Justice Adams upheld two objections by Sir Wilfrid Sim against the questioning of Ernest W. Pearson, a mining engineer of Westport, by the defence counsel concerning road making and means of extracting coal. It was claimed that there had been no question of previous witnesses called on these particulars matters and that there had been no references in the pleadings to alternative means of road construction at the mine to avoid stream pollution, or to alleged wrongful means of working plantiff’s mine by taking the easy coal and allowing other coal not so readily accessible to remain.

Witness, however, agreed that such methods of working coal mines were not generally approved. When being questioned on the road construction procedure Pearson said that he considered the one made was the best that Moynihan could have decided on. When Dr. Mazengarb said that defendant should .forget about his friendship with ‘the Moynihans and give clearer views on the matter, his Honour objected to the tone of the remark and it was not pursued by counsel. Sir Wilfrid Sim objected to questioning on the condition of the road and mining area nine months after the cancellation of the lease but his Honour said that the matter might be allowed to carry on and sort itself out, especially with respect to irrelevancy.

Dr. Mazengarb said the matter was covered in the pleadings but that view was opposed by counsel for the plaintiffs, who said that Dr. Mazengarb had become confused with reference to a bluff, not a culvert, which had given rise to the questioning. Witness was advised by Dr. Mazengarb to withdraw a previous statement that he was not a close friend of Thomas C. Moynihan who was manager of the plaintiff’s mine. Pearson said his position was difficult to define. They were not close friends but played cards together at friends’ houses once a month.