RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 84, 8 April 1878, Page 2

RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT

f Before L. Broad, Esq., R.M. j dulliford Gold-raining Company, Eegistered, v. M'Artney. His Worship gave judgment in this case this morning as follows:— This is an action to recover overdue calls. Defendant pleads not a shareholder, and further that the cause of action did not arise withiu six years last past. The facts are that in 1569 defendant agreed to buy from William Lloyd a share for his wife in the proposed Culliford Mining Company. Lloyd then asked the Secretary to substitute Mrs M'Artney's name for his own, and paid 255, the amount of the first call, the receipt being made out in Mrs M'Artney's name. This was handed by Lloyd to defendant, who accepted the receipt, and repaid to Lloyd the 255. When the Company was incorporated the Directors placed Mrs M'Artney's name upon the register of shareholders. No calls have been paid except as above. lam of opinion that this case falls within the principle of the decisions in ex parte Bloxain, 33 L J., N.S., Ch. 574, and ex parte Cookney, 28 L.J., N.S., Ch. 12 Defendant must be taken to have approved and adopted all that Lloyd did because he accepted the receipt and repaid him the deposit mover, and it seems clear that the Company could not have refused the defendant a share in the profits had there been any. But the defendant has pleaded the statute of limitations. To this it is replied that because of the deed under seal executed prior to the incorporation of the Company, and by virtue of Sec. 14 of the Mining Companies Act, 1865, the defendant is liahle upon the express covenant for 20 years. But neither the defendant or his agent ever signed the deed. I hare doubts as to whether the word " liability" in the 14th section does not apply only to the liability mentioned in Section 4of the Act. I need not decide that now, however; it is sufficient for the purposes of this case to say that in my opinion defendant is in no way liable upon express covenants in a deed to which he was not a party and that there is nothing in the Act to take a debt of this kind out of the operation of the Statute of Limitations, The plea is therefore a good one, and so judgment for defendant with costs £1 3s. Mr Pell appeared for the plaintiffs, and Mr Bunny for the defendant. I