A SOLICITOR'S AFFAIRS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 85, 11 April 1911, Page 8

A SOLICITOR'S AFFAIRS.

APPLICATION TO STRIKE HIM OFF THE ROLL. AN INTERESTING LETTER. In the Court of Appeal to-day, a motion to. strike John Francis Pullen, an Auckland solicitor, off the roll, came up for hearing. Mr.- T. Cotter appeared for the Auckland Law Society, and Mr. F. Earl for respondent. The Auckland Law Society moved that the rule nisi granted by the Supreme Court at Auckland on 18th October, 1910, be made absolute, and. that Pullen be struck off the roll of tors or be suspended from practice, on the ground that he had been guilty of professional misconduct. The case concerned -a private letter written by Pullen to E. Mahony, solicitor, in which he made charges of pro fessional misconduct in a case in which judgment went against one Greenhead, wljo in consequence claimed £30 from Mahony. Mr. Mahony refused' to reply to the-; letter or to pay the money demanded. Subsequently Mr. Mahony was. served with a summons alleging that ho had committed forgery, with a further summons alleging theft. The charges were investigated by Mr. E. C. Cutten, S.M. , and were dismissed ■without in either case calling upon Mr. Mahony for a defence. _ In his reply Pullen states that several times Greenhead interviewed him with the object of inteiesting him in his alleged grievances against Mr. Mahony. Continual visits and frequent letters had beoome extremely irksome to him (Pullen), and lie had become anxious to end his connection with tile bubiness, but he felt it due to Mr. Mahony that he should be informed of the nature of the allegation^. Without farther deliberation he hurriedly drafted the letter, and when the copy was brought to him he signed it. without reading it. j During the course of a very lengthy statement, Mr. Cotter said that Greenhead appeared to think that the whole thing was a conspiracy against him on the part of everyone concerned. Mr. Justice Denniston stated that he remembered ihe preposterous story being brought before him, but he had declined to have anything to do with it. j (Proceeding.) j