IMPORTANT LEGAL DECISIONS.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2435, 25 January 1882, Page 4

IMPORTANT LEGAL DECISIONS.

[PBSB3 JISBOOIASIOB TBIEQEAM.] WELLINGTON, January 24,. The judgment of the Supreme Court on the -rule nisi obtained on behalf of the borough of Wanganui, calling upon William Hair and others to show causa why the sum awarded by the Compensation Court should not be reduced to £3OOO, was delivered to-day by Judge Richmond, Judge Frendergast, C.J., concurring, ae follows :—“ The case is an important one to the public generally, because of the question of principle involved, and also to the parties, on account of the large amount -of compensation allowed by the award. It must, however, be disposed of upon exceedingly simple grounds. (His Honor here read the award.) The Court put two values on the land in the first place its value in the general market, which is assessed at £3OO, and then there is added the sum of £SOOO as a special value to the corporation of the land as a reservoir, we are of opinion that this added value cannot be allowed. The policy of the law prohibits making the necessity of the taker the measure of the value, that is of the price the taker is to pay. The true measure of value is the value in the general market. It is admitted that a special value of this laud as a reservoir in the general market must be allowed, and vre think it has been so allowed in the award ai £3OOO. The wording of the award shows that this is the case. I pat the case to Mr Travers on the argument of the owner of Jand in a narrow pass in a mountain range, whose land was required for a railway, and I asked whether it could be contended that the landowner could exact as the price to be paid to him the whole cost of a tunnel through the range, which the railway company would have had to make had they been unable to purchase the pass ; yet the principle is exactly the same as that involved in this case. To exact this additional sum of t£sooo for the value to the Corporation, and to no one else, would be against the policy of the law. The question is one of almost entire novelty, and is necessarily raised and con. tested here. We are therefore of opinion that each party should pay its own costs. The rule to reduce the award of the Compensation Court to £3OOO is made absolute.”

The appeal case of Sir William Fitzherbert and others, who were convicted under the Gaming and Lotteries Act for taking part in sweepstakes on the Hutt racecourse, was Feard to-day, and the conviction was affirmed and appeal dismissed with costs.