Claim for Compensation.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 3496, 14 March 1905, Page 2

Claim for Compensation.

SYMONLv, BOROUGH COUNCIL. In the Supreme Coiirt, Palmerston North, before His Honour the Chief Justice, the case Symons v Foxton Borough Conned was heard on Saturday. This was a motion by the respondent council to set aside an award filed in the Supreme Court by the claimant Mary Symons ori a claim for compensation for £250, for injury done to the plaintiff’s property by the stopping of Gray street, Foxton. Mr C. A. Loughnan (of Palmerston North) for the respondent council, addressing the court at length, argued that the Municipal Corporations Act, 1 goo, gave no power to award compensation for the closing of streets, and that the provisions of the act safeguarded the owners ot all lands abutting on closed streets; that in this instance as no special order had ever been made by the council authorising the closing ot the street, and the street was not therefore legally closed, no compensation could be claimed; that the claim had been made against the council and not against the corporation and consequently the corporation could not iu any case be bound by the award ; that the Registrar of the Supreme Court who had amended the claim by inserting the name of the corporation, of the mayor, councillors, and burgesses of the borough of Foxlon, instead of the name of the Foxton Borgugh Council had no jurisdiction to do so ; and that the matters in respect to which compensation was claimed, namely loss of frontage, reduction of access, and liability to prospective injury owing to the possibility of injurious or objectionable works being set up adjacent, were not matters in respect of which compensation could be claimed under the Municipal Corporations Act. Mr R. Moore, for the claimant, contended that the stopping of the street was the construction of a public work within the meaning of the Municipal Corporation Act, and that therefore compensation was payable under the provisions of that act giving compensation to land owners injured by the construction of public works ; that the Public Works Act also expressly provided that compensation should be payable by borough councils for injury done by the closing of streets ; that the absence of any special order closing the street was immaterial inasmuch as the Municipal Corporations Act expressly provided that the magistrate’s decision should be final on all questions, such decision having the effect of an irrebuttable presumption that all steps necessary to the legal closing of the street had been carried out; that the claim was rightly addressed to the Foxton Borough Council and not to the mayor councillors, and burgesses of the borough of Foxton, inasmuch as the council was the executive body of the corporation, and empowered by the Municipal Corporations Act to act for the corporation ; and that the form of claim given in tne Public Works Act required the name of the council and not the name of the corporation to be inserted ; that even assuming that the registrar had no power to amend the claim by changing the name of the respondent, it was open to the court on the present proceedings to make the amendment if such amendment were necessary; and that the matters in respect of which compensation were claimed were proper subjects for compensation under the act ; and that in any case now that the award had been filed in the Supreme Court as a judgment the amount was fixed beyond dispute, and it was not open to the respondent council to contest either the amount of the compensation or the matters in respect to which it was claimed. Mr Loughnan having replied, His Honour stated that as the case was one of considerable importance, he would take time to consider his decision.