ALLEGED PLAGIARISM

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 405, 14 December 1932, Page 7

ALLEGED PLAGIARISM

PRIVY COUNCIL CASE LORDS DISMISS APlEAL IN CASE AGAINST H. G. WELLS. SUIT FOR £100,000. London, November 3. The appeal of Florence A. Deeks, a Toronto authoress, in her suit against II. G. Wells, charging plagiarism, was dismissed to-day by the judiciary committee of the Privy Council. The judicial committee ruled tagainst Miss Deelcs in her appeal against the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, which denietl her suit for £100,000 from the eelebrated author. When Lord Atkin, the presiding justice, .dismissed tbe appeal, the Toronto woman howed'and left the court, making no statement. The hearing had lasted for nearly three days, during which Miss Deeks personally presented her iappeal. At one point she was momentarily overcome with faintness, but refused the offer of their lordships to adjourn. Pure Question of Fact. At the close of the argument today Lord Atkin declared that whether the hook, "The Web" (the one Miss Deeks .submitted to the Macmillan Publishing Company, which she claimed had been seen by Mr. Wells and P'art of whose contents li'e had used in his "Outline of History," had been improperly handed over and used, was a pure question of fact on which the two lower courts in Canada had concluded against the appellant. In the ordinary course of events, continued Lord Atkin, the judicial committee would have declined to hear the appeal, which suggested the findings on facts had been wrong, but since Miss Deeks had placed such confidence in the case Their Lordships had thought special exception might be taken in the interests of everyhody. Same Information Source. Both the hoolcs of Miss Deeks and Mr. Wells had been concerned with matters happening when neither of them were 'alive and theiiel'ore they wrtuld have been ohliged to go to the same source of information, stated His Lordship. IIi's Lordship further declared that the expert witnesses in the lower court in Canada had been allowed to give evidence which really had been beyond the province of the experts. Miss Deeks took 'action against Wells as far back as 11)25, but it was not until about two years ago that the case was first heard in the courts, and at that time it was dismissed by Mx\ Justice W. E. Raney, in an Ontario court. Iler appeal to the appellate division of the Supreme Court of Canada was refused, and she had left Canada last February to carry her charges to the Privy Council judicial committee.