SUPREME COURT

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3178, 31 August 1917, Page 9

SUPREME COURT

THE SCDAEF CASE

-FOR £625 DAMAGES

■ His Honour Mr. Juetlco Soaking and .a jur.r of twelve yesterday resumed tho •hearing of the cafio in which Isabel and Gladys Parey, dressmakers, Bued Arthur Waldomar Sohaef, -photographer, for £1050 dajiiagw for alleged ©oasj>iraoy and slander.

Mr. T. W. Young: appealed for tho plaintiffs and Mir. t\ M. Wiliord for tho defendant.

I His Honour, in summing up, said that ! tho jury might at onco dismiss tho allcga--1 tion that Sohaof conspired with one Cutbush in connection with proceeding taken in tho Magistrate's Court to obtain possession- of promises on tho ground that plaintiffs wore conducting- a house of illrame. There was no evidence to support, i the allegations of conspiracy. The jury I had to detormino whether Bcliaef had I falsely and maliciously declared tho girls Ito be prostitutes. The moro fact that a I girl had fallen would not be sufficient Ito brand her a-s a prostitute. Defendant, it appeared, was in' the habit of-mount-i in? a ladder and looking through. a win- ■ dow fin tho partition, and it was suggested for the plaintiffs that Schaef had taken advaitotage •of the construction of his preI mises in order to see tho girls .when they I were 'undressing. Schacf and' his brother I (who modo an inspection also) professed ! to havO ' seen the girls with men in eomi premising oirciunstances. • Tho part Outbush, a" neighbour, hadplayed, was to look through a. keyhole. Ho was a man who had been convicted of uttering a forged document. If the jury came to the conclusion that 'the girls had' been wronged, they must consider that tho ela-ndor had been aggravated by the defendant's statements during tho hearing of tho action. The jury, after an' hour's retirement, returned a verdict for £625 damages. Judgment w&a entered accordingly, with costs. ' i 'A CURIOUS ACCIDENT. Leah . Cecil Arnold made a claim of £2000 damages against Ivory, oa-rrier, for iujurios duo .to an accident.. Messrs. H.- F. O'Leary* and ;G. G. G. Watson appeared for tho plaintiff* and Mr. T. Neave for-tho defendant..Mr. Watson said that the . facts were a3 -simple as they -were extraordinary. On December 24 last the plaintiff, who was a bookkdoper in the employ of her father, was sitting in her father's motor-shed with tho doors, closed. Suddenly a motor lorry from the street crashed- through tho front of the shed, and ran over her. She sustained, very. severe injuries, whioh included a. broken'leg, and she would never fully' recover from thj*. effects rotf the aocident. ' Tho. occurrence took pljwo in John Street, Newtown, and tho motor lorry, whih was owned by tho defendant, was driven by defendant's son. Plaintiff claimed £2090 as general damages, and £48 10s. as expenses of medical treatment." After evidence for the plaintiff had been heard, Mr. Neave said that for the defence it would bo contended: (1) That there was Jio negligence on the part of the man who drove the motor lorry, and (-2)' that at the tlmo of the accident (whioh occurred on a Sunday) •ho waa not acting in tho regular oourso of his employment. Thomas James .Oallan, a brother of Mrs. Ivory, jun., stated that ho was tho driven of the lorry. He took it.out first to go and get some bread, but he intended to take a picnic party- to Petono Beach. The picnic was a.private affair, by witness andi eomo friends. . The Occident wo? duo to fihinglo which caused tho lorry to swerve off the road ,and run into tho shedi before witness coul£ stop it. • The case was not completed when the Court adjourned till to-day. '•