AN IMPORTANT POINT.

Evening Star, Issue 3499, 11 May 1874, Page 3

AN IMPORTANT POINT.

The judgment given by His Honor tbe Chief Justice at Auckland on May 1 in cases of Carlisle v, Brogden and Sons, and Goghau v. Brogden and Sons, is a most important judicial decision. It affects all classes of persons, whether contractors, contractees, or workmen The proceedings were taken under the Contractors’ Debts Act, 1871, to establish the rights of the plaintiffs. t6 recover the amounts claimed by them in the first case for piecework, and in the sfecond for wages. There was this peculiarity in . the second case, that while the first claimed as having been employed by the sub-contractor immediately under Messrs Brogden, the second was employed by Shaw and Donelley, who were sub-contractors under Messrs O’Neill and Thomas. The great difficulty found in interpreting the Act lay in the words “ responsible to the extent provided by this Act, the provision having to be gathered from a great variety of possible constructions of the language. Indeed, the learned Chief Justice expressed a wish that the Court of Appeal might be asked to give an authoritative judgment, so uncertain arid vague are the terms of the most important sections; As the matter stood, the Court gave judgment in favor of Brogden and Sons, in both cases for the reasons set out in the judgment, the concluding park of which was as follows Admitting the comprehensiveness of the words, it was argued that the structure of the first branch of section 13 required the Court to interpret it with reference to the special provision contained in section 2, by which the contractee’s liability is limited to sixty days’ wages, viz., of daily, weekly, or [ monthly wages, and that, if the first

branch of section 13 he so construed, the case of Carlisle, whose contract was for piece work, is not within that section at all. But I. think that neither the structure of the sentence in section 13, nor the provisions of section 2 require the word “wages” tobethuslimitf d m its meaning. The words are “responsible to the extent provided for by this Act for the wages,” to be read (as it appears to me) not “ provided for the wages,” but “ responsible for the wages to the extent provided for.” If this be the light reading, then the limitation in section 2, providing as that section does for compensation for work and labor generally, may mean, and I think does mean, merely that if that compensation be agreed for by way of daily, weekly, or monthly wages, the certificate shall not extend tn a larger amount than sixty days’ wages. I think, therefore, that the piecework of Carlisle is within section 13 as fully as the day work of Coghau. But, assuming this, what is the extent to which the contractor is made responsible for the same] It is “the extent provided for by the Actwords importing, it would seem, some provision made in the earlier parts of the Act. But the Act does not provide -for the contractor’s responsibility at all. As already remarked, the contractor’s responsibility is in the earlier parts of the Act assumed to be that which it in fact and by law is under his contract of employment, and the only responsibility for which the Act makes special provision is that not of the contractor, but of the contractee. But the contractee is made responsible through the medium of the certificate for wages of the workman by whom, the certificate is served, to the extent, and no farther than the extent, of moneys remaining due from the contractee to the com tractor. Ihe contractee can in np case be made to pay for the same work twice over. I think that, upon a reasonable construction of section 13, the responsibility of the contractor should he measured on the same principle ; and that, where the contractor has fully paid the sub-contractor without notice of any claim for wages by the workman, his responsibility's discharged. The full judgment should be cal efully read and studied by everyone engaged in business or empoyed to labor.