LIABILITY OF SUPPLIER.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4535, 5 March 1923, Page 2

LIABILITY OF SUPPLIER.

DAIRY COMPANY’S TEST CASE. AN IMPORTANT JUDGMENT. Reserved, judgment was delivered by Mr F. W. Platts, S.M., at the Te Awamutu Court on Friday last, in the case in which the N.Z. ’Co-operative Dairy Co. brought a claim against JW. Woolston, of Te Awamutu, for £lO5 as liquidated damages for non-com- : pliance with an agreement to supply milk from 3'5 cows to the company’s dried milk factory at Te Awamutu.. The Magistrate, in the course of a lengthy judgment, said that the first agreement was with the Zealandia ’Milk Foods, Ltd., and a year later the agreement was assigned to the N.Z. Cooperative Dairy Co., Ltd. The plaintiff company also prepared a second agreement with the supplier, and it was on the second agreement that the present action was based. The defence claimed that there had been (a) misrepresentation, (b) nondisclosure of essential facts, and (c) that the sum claimed was a penalty, and not a liquidated damage. After reviewing the evidence at length His Worship gave judgment for the company for. the full amount claimed, with costs. The judgment established the principle that those who undertook obligations under dried milk agreements with the N.Z. Co-operative Dairy Co., Ltd., must fulfil them, and will doubtless be received with satisfaction b.v those suppliers who remained loyal to the agreement and were fulfilling their responsibilities, in whose interests the action was primarily taken.