UNUSUAL CASE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 522, 4 May 1933, Page 2

UNUSUAL CASE

TIKITERE DISPUTE WHEN GUIDES FALL OUT QYER LEASE OF "HELL'S PLAYGROUND." P ARTNER SHIP PRO'VED. The question of the lesseeship of •the thermal region at Tikitere, known as "Hell's Playground," was decided at the 'Rotorua Magistrate's Gourt in an action in "which" Mr. H. Walker (Mr. W. A. Carter) sued Mrs. Martin (Mr. R. A. Potter) for £200 damages, alleging the existence of a partnership in the rights and calling for the termination of ,such partnership and the realisation and apportionment of the assets. After a very lengthy hearing, Mr. S. L. Paterson found that a partnership had been estahlished and adjourned the matter in order to enable the parties to arrive at some 'agreement, failing which he would appoint a receiver. Albert George Holland retired Judge of the Nativefl Land Court, deposed that both parties had come to him for advice over the Tikitere license. As far ;as he could remember Walker and Mrs., Martin cam'e in to ask about an extension of the lease, the reason being that they desired to raise a sum of money to improve the place and erect bath-houses. Walker isaid that he did not propose to expend money unless they could get an extension of the lease. Witness told them that the board had no power to extend the lease and that they would have to go to.. the owners. It wias suggested by both that Mrs. Martin surrendel* the lease and the new one be in their joint names. He advised them to lodge the necessary application with the board. He supposed from the impression left with him that they were going into partnership though the word was; not mentioned. Witness said that he could not put a value on the lease but he would not give £300 for the lease in view of the uncertainty of the conditions. To Mr. Potter: Tikitere had been known for years but there was no question that Mrs. Martin had generally improved it. Walker did most of the talking when the two visited him. Walker might have suggested a new lease in both names but with Mrs. Martin's concurrence. Harold Joseph Empen, clerk of the Land Board, produeed the board file of Tikitere showing an application by Mrs. Martin for a meeting of owners to deal with the lease and H. Walker was to be included as co-lessee. Anihera King, secretary of the Arawa Trust Board, said that the parties applied to the board for a loan by letter. H. Walker detailed the remarks made by Mrs. Martin when she asked him to leave Wairakei in 1929 and again in 1930. Witness had refused to leave as he did not feel like going into partnership without bringing some money into it. When his wages were lowered he sent her a rough draft of an agreement of partnership so that she could consult a solicitor. | Mr. Potter: First I've heard of it. I Mr. Carter: Where is it. Witness. It went up in flames. Witness said that last June he was burnt out and he lost all his records. Later Mrs. Martin asked him for financial assistance. After the fire he was ill and had also incurred liabilities. He then went on leave and on july 17 he interviewed Mrs. Martin and the question of partnership was discussed and it was decided to form a partnership on ;a fifty-fifty basis, and witness resigned his job at Wairakei. Soon afterwards he found out j that the rent was in tarrears. Witness I then 'embarked upon >a publicity campaign, telling her that :she must spend | money to make money. He drew up | ;an advertisement which Mrs. Martin I took exception to. A fresh draft included her name, which was later i erased from the advertisement. The | advertisement was paid for from the funds of the partnership. Witness did the bulk of the guiding and improved the tracks in his spare time. Witness did his best and wrote a 1 pamphlet on the sights and invited the delegates of the Municipal Conj ference. From July to November the takings doubled what they were for the same period the previous year. In December, they dropped from £138 to £79 for the month. Th'en he received

— — s — : >• -■ s ^ — a letter from Mr. Potter and ..was informed that he was considered to be an employee. Watnes^ considered that he was a partner and asked for time to consider. "Witness frequently tried to get an agreemeiit drawn up. Mr. barter then r ead a deal of voluminous correspondence which had passed between th'e parties. Witness detailed further diseussions with legial repf esentatives. Ljater witness ' allegied that certain articles wefe missing; from his tent and was -told that they h'ad been brokeri in his abserice, A quarrel then developed and Mrs Martin ordered them off th'e place. Pelted with Crockery. Then she started pelting Mrs. Walker with the crockery from the bre'alcfast table. She left the tent and soon afterwards an unele of witness' cam,e over and advised' them to leave. They left and had lived-in Rotorua. The main source of her complaint appeared to be witness' wife. Witness claimed that a partnership existed; that it should be. dissolved and that the assets should be realised and apportioned. He claimed that h'e had lost a job at £3 10s a week and and his keep and a job of £3 a week at Tikitere. He valued' the damages at £200 and was claiming that sum. To- Mr. Potter. Mrs. Martin had told Rim that she did not want him to put any money into the business but she wanted him to come into the business on a 50/50 basis. There was no question of his managing the place. After he was burnt out at Wairakei he was dissatisfied there and Mrs. Martin had told him th'at he could come to Tikitere. The question of the lease was never mentioned prior to his coming to Tikitere. Witness had not contributed any money towards the partnership. He could not hit it with the manager at Wairakei and that was one of the reasons he left there. Mrs. Martin was his first cousin and she had been good to him over land in the past. T'he new lease was first discussed when the question of improvements was mooted and Mrs. Martin told him that she was trying to get £800 from Sir Apirana Ngata, but nothing came of this. Mrs. Martin got nothing at all from the sale of the booklets which witness wrote, and these were not a partnership matter. No time for the partnership was mentioned and it could have. been terminated at any time providing good grounds existed for the step. If Mrs. Martin did not agree with his methods of managing Tikitere he would still carry on his way. Witness denied that Mr Potter had informed him that Mrs. Martin's offer of £2 a week and 10 per cent. of the g.uide fees was for as long as he stayed at Tikitere. Walker admitted holding Mrs. Martin's arm but that) was not the reason why his uncle advised him getting out. The court' then adjourned for the day. On resumption, Walker continued his eross-examination and said that he had tried to. get back to Wairakei and had every hope of being put on next season. He did not remember telling Mrs. Martin that she might go into his tent, but his wife might have told her so. To Mr. Carter: He had paid for the booklet himself. Mrs. Martin had told him that the lease h'ad seven years to run and he anticipated a seven years' partnership. In the case of an accident at the pools and a claim .against Mrs. Martin he would hold himself equally responsible with her. He held himself equally responsible in all things. This concluded^ the evidence for the plaintiff. For the defence, Mr. Potter said that at no time prior to Walker's goin to Tikitere was the lease mentioned. Thefl there was the question of Walker having to pay some money to g,o into the business and this money had not been paid. The cause of his leaving Wairakei was not Mrs. Martin's offer but a disagreement with the manager. He had admitted that he had been paid all moneys due to him and he had denied that he was empowered to bind Mrs. Mai*tin in any purchases or expenses. The new lease was really a try-out to see how far Mrs. Martin could go with the negotiations with the Land Board. Mrs. Martin h'ad always treated him .as an employee. His attitude towards Mrs. Martin was that he was to be top-dog and she was to . o into the background, thus giving ber good ground for dismissing him- His claim was mostly a matter of assumption of certain things. Mr. Potter then quoted a number of legal authorities. Mrs. Martin, who was granted the services of an interpreter, said that she had a conversation with Walker, going. to Wairakei to- .see him, in 1929 .and said to him that if ever he could see his way clear to come and work at Tikitere she would be very glad. He replied that he could not, since his boss was very good to him. A year later she went to her hushand's home at Taupo and saw Capt. Walker calling to see him and his wife, ias they were relations. The subject of Tikitere was discussed but nothing definite was done. There was the no question of th'e raising of money, but in 1932, with her daughter and aunt, she went to see him, also seeing him when she had heard that he h'ad been burnt out. They (he and Mrs. Walker) then told him that they were living on bad terms with' their boss. Walker said that if he could get money he would come to Tikitere, but without money he could pot come and she told him that it did not matter. He said this on each occasion. She had offered him 50/50 in the money, but nothing was mentioned about the lease and she never intended him to have any share,- only desiring to offer him ia job fori no stated time. Two days later Capt. and Mrs. Walker arrived at Tikitere. She was surprised as she thought th'at the whole thing had been knocked o'n the head. They told her that he could not get on with his boss but since h'e had arrived she said that it would be all right. They went to Tikitere and nothing was said about the lease. She wanted Walkeh as a manager but not as a partner in the iease. Some time after she decided to ask the Arawa Trust Board for some money. She had already asked for some and told Walker, wh'o thought it Was a good idea. They went to see Judge Holland on the day he was retiring. He toid them that hq could not do much for them and advised, them to try for an extension of the lease. Walker did most of th'e talking. She was quite lagreeable1 for ;

the lease to be extended. She and' Walker signed a paper, ,she paying £3 and Walker £2 towards the £5 stamp duty (a filing fee). A motion extending the lease had been passed by the meeting of owners, but not by the judjge. She had not gone on with1 the lease because she saw the faults of Capt. Walker. At this stage the magistmte remarked that he could not follow the defendant's evidence at all. It seemed to be irrelevant, despdte an interpretei*. Continuing, Mrs. Martin said that there had been several disagreements between Walker and h'erself and she oame to her solicitor telling him to notify Walker to go. After this she had made Walker an offer of £2 per week and 10 per cent. of the fees. She did this because he seemed dissatisfied. He refused this offer. Witness then described the trouble that had arisen between Walker and herself which led to his leaving. Hard words were exchanged. Speaking of the booklets/ she agreed to let him have all the profit. Walker had no right to pledge h'er credit and his position was that of a manager under her. Walker's claim of £3 per week was too high, since a.t its best Tikitere would only return £4 a week. Witness detailed her takings and expenditure. She had been offered £900 for Tikitere, but wanted £i200 for it. This

was when the lease commenced. Tikitere was a valuable asset, but only to people with money. Walker left because she disliked th'e faults of his wife and also grabbed her round the waist and pushed her. She wias hurt by some of the bad language used, V/alker's wife having insu>ted the mana of her grandfather and h'ad impugned the purity of her blood. This was regarded by h'er as a most venal offence, since Mrs. Walker was abusing Tikitere and witness' ancestors by whom she was given her daily bread. Witness then determined to get rid of them and the entry to Walker's tent had nothing to do with it. She had authority to enter Walker's tent. Walkers had slept in the Mrs. Walker's tearooms, which were given to them by her. She was emphatic that Walker was ohly ergaged as a manager and was not to have any interest in the lease. Gross-examined by Mr. Carter, Mrs. Martin said that she could converse in English but in an important matter preferred to use her native language. In 1932 she, admitted that she was in financial difficulties, as was the rest of the world. She owed rent but not for two quarters. She did not owe anything before Walker came. Most of her conversations with Walker were in ia mixture of English and Maori. She did not propose that Walker put any money into the business and she did not suggest a 50/50 partnership basis. She was not glad when Walker came, but acquiesced, since she knew he was in trouble with his boss at Wairakei. Walker was her only cousin. From. the way he spoke she thought he ran away from Wairakei and knew nothing about his sending in his resignation. her daughter was in charge of Tikitere when she was absent ia.nd she had another girl friend who helped with the guiding. When she came into Rotorua to try for an extension of the lease she all owed Walker to come with her, since he would not allow her to leave him out of anything. | No discussion had been held to put the lease in their joint names. She signed the application for th'e new lease in both then* names. She could not remember giving Mr. Potter instruotions to draw up a new lease and put in Walker s name. She denied that she had intended to make Walker a partner in everything. He was not to be in the old lease but was in the new lease. Mrs. Martin denied that she was in arrears with her rent, as her pay ments were made half-yearly. Re-examined by Mr. Potter: Another reason why she would not pro--ceed with the lease was that th'e iarrangement had not been mentioned at the meeting of owners. Ahu Martin, daughter of the last witness, gave evidence that her mother asked Walker to come to Tikitere but Walker refused as he h'ad no money to put in, but he said that he would consider the matter. Her lmpressions of various conversation^ with Walker were that Walker had left Wairakei owing to a disagreement with his boss, and was coming to help at Tikitere. Witness owned the tearooms and with her sister took all the earnings from them. The whole of the final quarrel was over a butter dish and both parties told one another a few home tfuths. Cross-examined by Mr. Cartei*, witness said that she had never understood that Walker was to have been a partner. . William Hapeta, of Tikitere, gave evidence/ that Mrs. Walker had told Mrs. Martin that she could go mto the tent to get some butter. , To Mr. Carter: Witness frequently went to Tikitere for a bath. Walker was there but witness did not know whether h'e was a partner or not. He was a relation of both Walker and Mrs. Martin. The Bench traversed the evidence in summing up. It was clear froni July to March that the business was carried on in partnership. Walker claimed that he had gone down to enter into a partnership and frankly the Bench could not understand defendant's evidence in denial of this. The claim was corroborated by the ap»plioation for a new lease and the consultation of a judge of the Native Land Court. Again, they applied for a joint loan. The actions clearly constituted a partnership. It was clear that the new lease was to be a part of the partnership. One was contributing the lease and the other a certain amount of skill and experience. The differences arose mainly through the jealousy of the defendant, wh'o found that she was being. obscured by the plaintiff, which touched her vanity. The plaintiff might have used more tact. Notice was given termi: nating the partnership in December, but this wias not acted upon. The position now was that a receiver must be appointed. In the meantime, the matter would be adjourned until May 29 to enable the parties to come to some agreement, since if the assets were realised and the leasei of Tikitere put up for auction both parties would probably (find themselves, in debt. He warned both sides that they ■must not be greedy. Costs for plaintiff would come out of the assets;