JUDGMENT SET ASIDE

Hokitika Guardian, 21 October 1931, Page 3

JUDGMENT SET ASIDE

NOT ENFORCEABLE HEF.E. MADE BY SCOTTISH COURT. 'I lie question of whether a judgment of the Court of Session, Scotland, obt; fined by AY iiliam Smart Taylor against Robert Begg, should he enforced in New Zealand, was decided in a judgment delivered by Mr Justice MacGregor in the Supreme Court at Wellington on Friday. An order was made by the New Zealand Court on August 28, 1931, giving leave to Taylor to register the Scottish judgment a aiost Begg. 'It 1 was manifest, his Honour' said, that a very grave injustice might and probably would he done to Begg if this jiHi lament were now to be enforced against him. In his judgment, accordingly, the leave granted to the plaintiff, Taylor, to register this judgment, 'must he set aside, on the ground that n all the circumstan es of the care it was not just and couveni. nt that, the ,judgment should he enforced in New Zealand. The f acts 'of the ease were til’t on August 22, 1920. Berg executed in f,v our of Taylor in Scotland a mortgage over certain land in Broxburn for the sum of £7OO, repayable in six months, with interest thereon until repay me t at 6 per < ent. After being only registered, the mortgage itself apparent!v forthwith became in effect a final judgment or decree of the Court of Session in favour of Taylor against Begg for the princiual sum of £7OO. with interest thereon at 6 per cent, from AAlntsunday, 1920, until actual payment, along with a liquidate penalty of 20 per cent, on overdue principal and interest. AVhen this judgment of decree was so entered against the defendant Begg in Scotland on January 17. 1931, Begg was resident in New Zealand. having left Scotland some three years, before.

In deliver'ng judgment. bis Honour remarked that lie thought- his find'np was in harmonv wit 1 ' tlu> prinoip <' of n deoiskm of the Judical Con'ini'tee .-f the Privy Council, 1P93. where theI’- 1 ’- Lordships stated the law thus:— “When a judgment of nnv tiib'-n----al comes to he enforced in another country, its effect will be judged of by the courts of that country with regard to all the circumstances of the case.”