A SLANDER CASE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 861, 5 July 1910, Page 3

A SLANDER CASE.

In the Supreme Court, at Napier, last week a case in which two Woodville residents were concerned was heard.

Patrick William Scally, settler, sought to recover from Andrew Laing for alleged slander. Mr Pownall (Masterton) appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr Lusk for the defendant.

Mr Pownall, in opening, stated that owing to a dispute with regard to the services of a stallion, the parties had an altercation when they met on Dannevirke racecourse on March 10th of this year. During the talk the defendant denied having given a guarantee with the stallion, and called the plaintiff a liar, a thief, and other names, each prefaced by an adjective which counsel did not think it necessary to repeat. The words were used in the presence of and within the hearing of a large number of people on the racecourse, with the result that the plaintiff’s business reputation as a stock dealer had been injured.

The defence was a denial that the u ords alleged to have been used were used ; that, if they were used, the plaintiff had not suffered financially or in his business reputation, and that the plaintiff provoked the quarrel and the bad language that took place on the racecourse.

After hearing the evidence, His Honour gave judgment for the plaintiff for £25, with costs according to scale.