DEAL IN OATS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 774, 21 September 1929, Page 13

DEAL IN OATS

FIRM ALLEGES BREACH OF CONTRACT CLAIM FOR OVER £5,000 Press Association W ELLINGTON, Friday. Breach of contract wae alleged in a claim for £5,470, plus Interest at 8 per cent., made in the Supreme Court today by the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, Limited, against Wright, Stephenson and Company, Limited. The Chief Justice, Hon. M. Myers, presided. Mr. A. Gray, K.C.. and Mr. C. A. L. Treadwell appeared for the plaintiff company, and Mr. H. F. O'leary and Mr. H. E. Evans for the defendant company. The statement of claim set out that from May 7. 1928. the plaintiff company, at Bluff, purchased from different sources 5,649 sacks of oats. Payment was made to the defendant company. The oats were stored in defendant company’s store. Payment was made and warrants and graders' certificates were delivered to the plaintiff company. i t was stated that the oats had been branded as described in the warrants and certificates. However, and m e n £ r£ d f H nt co “P an y did not brand he S 2- Cks of oats as required y the terms of the contract. On February 16, 1929, plaintiff company asked that the oats which wSe !? ? to^ e at Edendale. Southland, be deof Ml,- t 0 u ff. Upon the arrival ot the consignment at Bluff it was noticed that they were not branded and plaintiff company refused to accept delivery. Soon afterward this happened again with another consignment. In defence it was stated that, for the purpose of identifying the different parcels of oats, for which the store warrants and graders’ certificates were reguired, a distinctive mark was placed on a few sacks of each parcel. The custom or practice of the trade was to leave the sacks so marked until delivery was required by the owner of the oats, and then, when the sacks were going out, to brand each with the particular mark which identified the parcel from which the oats came, or with such other mark or marks as the owner might specify. When the plaintiff company in February, 1929, requested delivery of the oats, through inadvertence the sacks went out of the store unbranded. As soon as that wa« discovered the defendant company offered to do the necessary work of branding, but the plaintiff company refused. The marks or brands referred to were merely for the purpose of identifying the particular parcel which had been appropriated to the contract, and were in no way warranties. When Mr. Gray was presenting his case for the plaintiff his Honor interrupted by saying: "I suppose your case is, shortly, that defendants did not deliver these goods and cannot deliver them?” Mr. Gray: That is precisely the case. He added that there was little in dispute except as to the practice of branding. His Honor: There may be a little more in it than that. It is not an ordinary case of the sale of goods and breach of contract. I can 6ee possibilities of something more than that. The evidence of several witnesses was heard for the plaintiff company. During the course of one witness’s evidence his Honor remarked that it was not for him to deal with motives or the question of morality, but he thought that if oats had gone up in price nothing more would have been heard of the case. The hearing was adjourned until Monday.