LAW REPORTS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2521, 23 July 1915, Page 9

LAW REPORTS

COURT OF APPEAL

CLAIM FOR WAGES ALLOWED

Reserved judgment was delivered yesterday morning by the Court of Appeal in the case in which Elizabeth Mary Joseph Brogan appealed against the decision of His Honour the Chief Justice iu her action against the Public Trustee, as executor under the will of William Moriarty, for £500 and interest. Moriarty was in 1884 a bootmaker in Carterton, and the appellant entered his service as a girl. Her statement was that she received no wages for several years. It was • disclosed in the hearing of the caso that deceased gave appellant an acknowledgment of tho fact that ho owed her £500 on August 6, 1906, and that she returned it to him to invest in the business, and she, therefore, brought the action against tho Public Trustee for the amount of £500, with interest at 6 per cent., the amount he was paying on his overdraft. Tho jury found a verdict in her favour for the amount claimed, but after certain legal phases of tho case had been argued along with a. nonsuit motion, His Honour the Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout) held that there was no declaration of trust by the testator, and that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover. Against that decision Miss Brogan appealed, and tho Appeal Court yesterday upheld her appeal, holding that the money had been returned to the testator for investment in his business, and that it had been received by him as a trust. The Court therefore allowed tho appeal, giving judgment for Miss Brogan £500, with interest at G per cent, as from August 6, 1906, costs on the.high: est scale as for a case from a distance, witnesses' expenses and allowances, and £10 10s. for tho second day of the trial.At the hearing of the appeal Mr. A. Gray, K.C., with him Mr. P. L. Hollings, of Masterton, appeared for Miss Brogan, while Sir John Findlay, K.C., with him Mr. T. E. Maunsell, of Carterton, appeared for th© Public Trustee.