GUMDIGGER WINS CLAIM

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 940, 5 April 1930, Page 6

GUMDIGGER WINS CLAIM

SUIT FOR WAGES AND LOANS The claim for £707 for wages and loans advanced on a Te Kopuru pmdigging venture, made by John Luka Maich against Mate Maich, which was heard in the Supreme Court yesterday, was successful. Judgment was entered for plaintiff for the total sum claimed with interest. The parties are in no way related, although their surnames are the same. The action arose out of the washing of a swamp on the defendant's farm at Te Kopuru, between 1920 and 1921, when prices for gum reached an extraordinarily high level. John Maich, who was then a gumdigger, claimed that defendant engaged him in digging the property at £ 1 a day from November 1, 1920 to October 31, 1921, and that £273 in wages was owing to him. During this time loans amounting to £823 were made to defendant, who made a written admission in 3 924 that £907 was then the amount of his liability to plaintiff. Since then £2OO had been paid by defendant in reduction of his debt. The defence was that an agreement had been entered into between plaintiff and defendant, under which the former was to advance the money to finance the gumdigging operations, the money was to be repaid by the sales of gum. \ His Honour entered judgment for the plaintiff for £707 and interest at the rate of 5 per cent, from April 1, 1929.