A £30,000 LAWSUIT

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8360, 21 February 1913, Page 7

A £30,000 LAWSUIT

TOO MUCH WATER. DRAINAGE BOARD SUED. Special to the “Times.” PALMERSTON N., February 19. Mr E. B. V. Pearce, a well-known Rangiotu grazier, who last year panicked the flaxmillers by getting a farreaching injunction preventing them from pouring the mill effluent into the Oroua river, is the plaintiff in a lawsuit here before the Chief Justice involving issues estimated at £30,000. Tte defendants are the Manawatu Drainage Board, for whom Mr Morison, K.C., of Wellington, is the leading counsel. The actual claim is for £SOO for deterioration of plaintiff’s land by flooding attributed to tte board’s alleged neglect to keep tho main drain in an efficient condition. Plaintiff also asks for a mandamus to compel the board to prevent a recurrence of the trouble in future. In the course of the evidence it was stated that tho plaintiff has an area of between 1200 and 1500 acres through which tho board’s main drain flows. One of tho plaintiff’s witnesses estimated its value in its present state at £8 per acre, but said if it were free from flooding it would bo worth £3O per acre, TUa Honor remarked that this was a difference of £22 per acre oh the area of 1200 to 1500 acres. The plaintiff’s expert witnesses engaged in the case include Messrs LamgMeason, Fitzgerald, and Ward, civil engineers, of Wellington. Tho case is proceeding.