CLAIM FOR £325

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 387, 22 June 1928, Page 13

CLAIM FOR £325

PURCHASE PRICE OF CAR INVOLVED TRANSACTION A claim for £325, the purchase price of a motor-car sold in May, 1923, was made by Eliza Seymour Rae before Mr. Justice MacGregor at the Supreme Court this morning, against William Alexander Fraser. Mr. G. P. Finlay, for Fraser, in outlining the history of the transaction, said that Fraser, in partnership with George Dickson, had. before January, 1923. been in business as Fraser and Co., general agents, Parnell. On that date the firm was taken over by Daylite, Ltd., as a going concern. Fraser and Dickson, at the same time as they were winding up their own business, were also managing the new firm. In May, said Mr. Finlay, Dickson had bought the car from Mrs. Rae to use jn the business of Daylite, Ltd., but with the grudging consent of Fraser. The promissory note was executed by Fraser and Co., but had since been lost. Later Daylite. Ltd., went into liquidation, and Dickson left for Sydney to exploit certain milking machine patents held in Australia by Fraser and Co. Witnesses were called by Mr. Finlay to show that Mrs. Rae had later financed Dickson in an arrangement in which Fraser was relieved of all the debts of Fraser and Co., in return for surrendering his interest in the Australian patents. Later, according to the evidence of Robert Sellar, solicitor for Fraser and Co.’s largest creditors, Mrs. Rae admitted that she realised the position and that she was accepting full responsibility for the debts of Fraser and Co. After this arrangement had been made, continued Mr. Finlay, Mrs. Rae received £360 from Dickson in Australia, to be paid off the debt owing to Mr. Sellar’s clients, but she appropriated it as payment for the car. For plaintiff, Mr. McLiver submitted that she did not realise that she was taking responsibility for the debts of Fraser and Co. She understood that an extension of time to pay had been asked for and that she was merely standing as guarantor for the debtors. Thomas Buchanan, assistant to W. Maben, accountant, who was acting as attorney for Dickson, said that, before the arrangement under which Mrs. Rae accepted responsibility for the debts of Fraser and Company had been made, she had been pressing for payment of the money owing on the car. After the arrangement had been made, she no longer urged payment. His Honour said that there was no necessity to call irrelevant evidence. The whole question was whether the agreement made was a release and, if so. whether Mrs. Rae was a party to it. (Proceeding.)