Alleged Malicious Prosecution.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1677, 6 April 1886, Page 4

Alleged Malicious Prosecution.

(united press association.) Inveboargill, Monday. The case of Murphy ▼• McLean concluded m the Supreme Court on Saturflay. The claim was i>3oo, as damage for malicious prosecution. Plaintiff was engaged on a farm, and was due six months' wages when his employer's horses and other property .were sold by McLean. Plaintiff took some of the horses away, saying he wanted his wages and would not give them up till paid. McLean, after consulting with a Justice of: the Peace, laid an information against plaintiff for larceny. Murphy waa arrested and remanded tor a week on bail, and thea brought up and discharged. The defence was that plaintiff had set up a wrongful claim, and that defendant had acted without malice. His Honour, m giving judgment, said there was no dispute as to what plaintiff had done on' the occasion of the sale with respect to the horses. Moreover, all the acts of plaintiff were known to defendant, and it was quite evident that plaintiff's conduct was not that of a thief, but of a trespasser. There was no reasonable and proper cause for charging him with theft, and any person doing so would act with "recklessness amounting to malice. It was no excuse that any person doing so: had first taken counsel with Dogberry and Verges, and that they all laid their heads together and agreed that plaintiff was a thief. He was entitled to recover, but it could not be denied that his conduct was wrong as wrong could be, and he had brought the whole thins' on himself. Jugment was piven for 40s, and costs on the lowest scala