CLAIM AGAINST DAIRY COMPANY GRANTED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 358, 19 May 1928, Page 11

CLAIM AGAINST DAIRY COMPANY GRANTED

CREAM PRICES DISPUTED Press Association. DANNEVIRKE. Friday. A case of importance to local dairy farmers was heard in the Dannevirke Magistrate’s Court before Mr. H. A. Young, S.M., in which a dairy farmer of Tahoraiti was plaintiff and the Eclipse Dairy Company was defendant. Plaintiff claimed £l9 12s 6d, being the difference in the price plaintiff received for cream supplied to the defendant company and what would have been received had plaintiff been supplying another factory operating in this particular district. In 1925-26 the defendant company placed an advertisement in a local paper and also sent cards to farmers in the district, in which the defendant company guaranteed to pay a price equal to, if not better than, that given by any other company operating in the district. Acting upon the representations made by the company, the plaintiff agreed to supply the defendant. Plaintiff alleges that he subsequently ascertained that the defendant wds not keeping its guarantee and that when approached the managing director and the secretary of the company blamed the Dairy Control Board. Counsel for plaintiff said the case was ..■'ore in the nature of a test action. There were other suppliers to the Eclipse Dairy Company who were awaiting the result of the present case. The case depended on whether it was a contract as between buyer and seller, or one of agency. After a lengthy hearing, judgment was given for plaintiff for the full amount, with costs. LEAVE TO APPEAL REFUSED Leave to appeal was refused, the magistrate saying that it was purely a question of fact. There was an expressed contract between the authorised representative of the company and plaintiff’s manager that the defendant company would pay out a price equal to, if not greater than, that of any other butter factory operating in the district. If the defendant company had not intended to include one rival company, it should have expressly stated so in its advertisement and circular.