FARM STOCK DISPUTE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 128, 1 June 1937, Page 10

FARM STOCK DISPUTE

DEFENDANT WINS CASE

Holding that the transactions by which the farm of William Waugh/'of Springfield, Martinborough, had been stocked with sheep were not moneylending transactions, the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) gave judgment in the Supreme Court today for Garth Reginald Jackson, land and commission agent, of Masterton. '

Mr. W. P. Shorland appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr. J. D. Willis for the defendant.

The case started yesterday, and the plaintiff, who was financed by the defendant, then secretary of a financial concern, the Masterton Investment Company, based his claim that the defendant's remuneration, interest, and charges were excessive on the submission that the agreements drawr. up were ordinary money-lending transactions. ■ Giving judgment today, his Honour said it had been admitted that the defendant was at material times a registered moneylender, but it was . not sufficient.to prove that merely. It had to be proved also that the transactions in' question were money lending transactions or. loans of money by a moneylender within the contemplation of the Act. In other words, the plaintiff had to show that the documents which were called bailments were not bailments in substance, but were in substance instruments by way of security.

His Honour could see no reason for saying that the documents were not genuine bailments, and he gave judgroent for the defendant. He refused a decree that the transactions were moneylending transactions and that the transactions be reopened. He ordered, however, that accounts be taken on the basis of the transactions as set out in the respective bailments, but not otherwise.

In the course of his judgment his Honour said that there had been no suggestion of fraud in the case.