NEEDLESS COST

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 765, 11 September 1929, Page 18

NEEDLESS COST

COMPENSATION FOR LAND CHIEF JUSTICE SPEAKS OUT Press Association WELLINGTON, Today. The Chief Justice, the Hon. M. Myers, while hearing a claim for compensation by J. R. Johnson, a builder, for £10,850 for land and buildings taken by the City Council for a new milk station, said that if the council had been reasonable it would have saved £2,000 to £3,000. It was unfair to dispossess the man of his property and merely to offer him another piece of land. He had to go to the expense of erecting new buildings, and the court would not agree to it. Counsel replied that Johnson was claiming £6,000 more than the value of the land, and if he had made a reasonable offer the position might have been different. His Honour said it was the duty of the council to make a reasonable offer. He considered that neither side had been reasonable. Mr. F. Martin, city valuer, who was a witness for the council, agreed with the judge’s comments, and said he was glad to hear them, as he had often been accused of being too generous. This witness said he had offered another property to claimant, which had been offered to the council for £4,500, but it was now sold, and the new owner wanted far more. The council’s witnesses, as is usual in compensation cases, differed very widely from the values estimated by the plaintiff’s.