CLAim FOR £6000

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2643, 14 December 1915, Page 6

CLAim FOR £6000

4 WELLINGTON CASE IN PALMERSTON At Palmerston North Supreme Court yesterday Mr. .Justice Edwards sat to hear the case of John Keir and Ferguson Munro (plaintiffs) and John Guthrie Wood Aitkeu and George Wilson (defendants). The action arose out of the sale by defendants to plaintiffs of the formers' business as general merchants. The statement of claim set out that by an ment, dated July C, 1914, defendants sold, to plaintiffs all .the assets, property, and undertaking of their business, including certain leasehold premises, stock-in-trade goodwill, and interest in connection with the business (but excluding bad debts), as at June 30, 1914. It was alleged that in the course of negotiations prior to the execution of the agreement, the defendants Tepeatedly stated to plaintiffs that- the agencies they held were exceedingly profitable and valuable, and that for some time after the execution of the agreement they still held such agencies as part of their business. The agencies in respect of which the representations were alleged to have been made were Pry and Sons, the New Zealand Wax Vesta Com-, pany, and tihe Sykes, Drench Coaipany. Further, it was alleged, the defendants undertook to do all they reasonably could to secure the continuance of the agencies with the plaintiffs, hut that, some time after the execution of the agreement, plaintiffs discovered that Pry and Sons' agency had been given up by defendants some time previously,'also that defendants knew that.the N.Z. Wax Vesta Company's agency conJd'not'pass to plaintiffs, and that Sykes's Drench agency was not held on the date of the representations.alleged to have been made. The statement of claim further set 'out that the representations were made by defendants with the intention of inducing plaintiffs to purchase the business on the faith of them. ■Therefore plaintiffs claimed ' iSGOOO as damages. The statement of defence was a general denial that the representations alleged to have been made were in effect' made. Further, it was denied that plaintiffs had. suffered any damage, arid defendants counter-claimed for the balance of the purchase money alleged to be owing on. the sale of the business. • Hearing of th« evidence occupied the whole of the afternoon. Sir John Findlay, E.C., with Mr. D. R. Hoggard, appeared for plaintiffs, and Mr. C. P. Skerrett, K.C., with Mr. T,.., for defendants.