RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT.

Lyttelton Times, Volume IX, Issue 552, 17 February 1858, Page 5

RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT.

Lyttelton, Feb. 15th. (Before R. H. Rhodes, I. T. Cookson, and W. Donald, Esqrs. A case important to builders and persons engaged in the timber trade was decided to-day. It was an action brought by Mr. Luck against Messrs. R. Waitt & Co. to recover the value of a deficiency in the measurement, of timber purchased by the plaintiff from defendants. The timber had been bought on behalf of the Building Committee of the Christchurch Episcopal Residence, and Messrs. Waitt & Co. acted as

agents of the schooner Acis, of Hobart Town in which the timber had been imported. The suit between the parties was an amicable one and damages were laid at £20. The deficiency in the measurement was a,500 ft., and was stated in the plaintiff's evidence to have arisen from the description of 6 x 2 and 5 x 2 pieces as 6 x 3 in the invoice, on the strength of which he had recommended the committee to purchase the cargo. The timber had been paid for prior to its delivery at Christchurch, and before the measurements had been found not to tally with the description. The discrepancy was found only in one portion of the lot; owing to the inferiority of the timber the plaintiff had to make alterations in the designs of the works. Mr. Marley, the contractor for the building, was called to prove the measurement of the pieces objected to, and specimens were produced in court.

Mr. K. Taylor, builder, stated that the whole difference could not have been produced by shrinkage, and gave his opinion as to the custom of the trade in Tasmania being to sell timber either full measurement or allowing only the breadth of the saw-cut. On the defendant's side the deficient measurement was admitted, but it was shown that the invoice of the lot complained of Btated it to be "market cut," and not "full cut."

Mr. F. Banks, being called as a witness, stated, from his knowledge of the trade and from prices current to late dates, that the practice in Tasmania and Australia with respect to Van Diemen's Land timber was to make a difference between " full cut and " market cut" of from 20 to 50 per cent; the measurements of the latter being regularly deficient to that extent, and both prices and freights proportionately reduced. It appeared that the plaintiff did not understand this distinction.

After a short consultation the Bench gave judgment for the plaintiff in the full amount claimed without explanation. Mr. Dampier was counsel for the defendants.