THE WORD "EVENING"

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10284, 20 May 1919, Page 5

THE WORD "EVENING"

INTERESTING APPEAL CASE AT CHRISTCHUHUH.

Press Association

GHRISTCHURCH, May 19. Judgment was delivered in the Supreme Court this morning by Mr Justice Herdman in the appeal by the Labour Department against the decision given at Timaru by Air Day, S.M., who had decided against the department in a prosecution brought by it against Manning and Dawson, grocers, of Timaru, for having kept their premises open after V p.m. on December 31st, 1918, contrary to tho hour' of closing fixed by requisition of those engaged in the trade- The case turned on the meaning of the word "evening" occurring m section 25 of the Shops and Offices Act, 1908, amendments, the Act itself containing no definition of the word. Under legislation passed in 1918, however, "evening" was defined as "the time of day r,ot earlier than 5 o'clock in the afternoon."

In allowing the appeal His Honour pointed out that since the Chief Justice had delivered judgment in the Holdsworth v. -Lightfoot case, the law bad undergone a radical change, and what was then vague had been given a definite meaning by subsection 41 of the War Legislation and Statute .Law Amendment Act, 1918. It would bo absurd, His Honour stated, to find on one hand that the grocers through the medium of a requisition could close at 7 p.m. on working days, including New Year's Kve, and to decide on the other hand thta because- section 5 of the Act permitted the employment of assistants till 11 p.m. that the same grocers enjoyed the light to keen open beyond the hour which they determined should he the closing hour.