APPEAL COURT

Hokitika Guardian, 30 September 1931, Page 2

APPEAL COURT

SOLICITORS’ ACCOUNTS. LAW SOCIETY'S ACTIONS. (By Telegraph—Per Press Association) WELLINGTON, September 29. The adjourned hearing of the charges brought by the New Zealand Law Society against Walter Hislop, barrister and solicitor of Napier, came to-day before the Court of Appeal (Sir M. Myers, Justices ,Reed, Ostler, and Smith). The case had been adjourned since July last, to entitle the practitioner to place- further facts before the Court.

Mr Free, restating the facts, said that at the end of last? year Hislop received a cheque in repayment of a mortgage in favour of a lady client. He banked the cheque on the 19:h of December, then, having only a small balance in his trust account. Although further amounts were paid to him on behalf of clients, no further banking was done till after the earthquake, which, on 3rd February, destroyed his office, and with it the strong room and the contents. The solicitor’s credit at the bank was then found to be subsequently reduced, although the amount of the mortgage moneys had not been paid over to the lady client. The solicitor’s explanation was that money had been paid out on the trust account against moneys which he had received on behalf of clients, but which he had been too busy to bank, At the time of the earthquake, he alleged, he had fk>oo Odd in his strongroom, and that had been lost in the fire, Mir Free said that, since the last adjournment, Hislop, appeared to have substantiated h>s statement that moneys had been received in respect t)f which payments had been made, so .that the position was ditfereujt from when the case was last before the Court.

Sir M. -Myers, in delivering judgment said that it was particularly fortunate ifor Hislop that the Court had previously suggested an adjournment to enable him to bring further particulars before it. The practitionerhad been guilty of very grave negligence. The money lost in the earthquake belonged to his clients, and his duty was to have banked it promptly. He had not only been guilly of carelessness, but had committed a breach of the Law Practitioners’ Act. As he had been virtually suspended from practice since February last, he would be sternly' reprimanded by the Court and ordered to pay the Law Society’s costs. Mr Hay appeared for Hislop.

MIXED ACCOUNTS. SOLICITOR IN TROUBLE. WELLINGTON, September 29. ;■ The Court of Appeal (Sir M. Myers, Justices Reed, Ostler and Smith), heard an application by the New Zealand Law Society for an order striking William Fallon of Auckland, barrister and solicitor, off the rolls of Barristers and Solicitors for the Dominion, Mr Meek, with (Mr Free, ap. peared for the Law- -Society, and said the grounds for the application were that Fallon had mixed -his trust and his personal funds in one account, and had drawn on that account for private purposes, amounts in excess of what he was entitled to draw. The alleged irregularities complained of took place between 1923 and 1931, whilst Fallon was in partnership with one Mason. Mason, however, - had been entirely ignorant of what was taking place and had fur his part, been scrupulously care lid as fo the amounts which he drew from the trust account.

Mr L. P. Lear’v, who appeared for the practitioner, said that the system of banking and book-keeping, which led to the confusion had been instituted twenty years ago by a Public Accountant, and not by Fallon, who knew nothing of book-keeping. The difficulty had arisen out of the fact that Fallon relied on his accountant, who always told h’im that the trust account was -square, and who, out of a mistaken sense of loyalty, had falsified the books, and forged an auditor’s certificate. At no .time was the solicitor arvare that he was overdrawing the amount due to him in ihe trust account, The amount of the deficiency in the trust account had been made good by the two partners. 'He asked that the practitioner be not struck off, but that some more lenient punishment be given him.

The Court reserved its decision