PRODUCE FIRMS AT LAW

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1008, 26 June 1930, Page 12

PRODUCE FIRMS AT LAW

WRIGHT, STEPHENSON’S AND LOAN AND MERCANTILE APPEAL FROM JUDGMENT Press Association WELLINGTON, Today. The Court of Appeal is engraved today hearing- the appeal of Wright, Stephenson and Company, Ltd., from the Judgment of Sir Michael Myers, Chief Justice, delivered in December last in the case of Wright, Stephenson and Company, Ltd., v. the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company. Ltd. Doth appellant and respondent carry on business in New Zealand and both are members of the New Zealand Grain, Seed and Produce Merchants’ Federation, which has since 1918 laid down the conditions of sale of grain, seed and produce in New Zealand, and which conditions, unless expressly excepted, are deemed to be included in ail contracts for sale and purchase of grain between members of tho federation. Respondents, in May, 1925, agreed to purchase from appellants’ Gore branch two lots of 2,000 sacks A grade Garton oats, each at 4s 3d a bushel, the sale being expressly subject to the federation terms made in 1925. The oats lay in appellants’ store at Edendalo till January, 1929, when appellants wrote to respondents, asking them to take delivery of the goods which respondents agreed to do. bv February 28. BRAND ON SACK It was shortly afterward discovered by respondents that the sacks of oats had not been branded in the exact wav prescribed by the 1925 terms, and they therefore refused to take delivery of the oats. Respondents had also purchased from third parties various quantities of oats, which had been originally bought from appellants, and for which store warrants had been issued by appellants to its purchasers, such warrants being subsequently endorsed over to respondents. These oats also were not branded in the manner prescribed by 1925 terms and respondents again refused to take delivery. In. May, 1929. respondents issued against appellants a writ claiming the amounts paid both to respondents and to the third parties for the purchase of oats, and the case came on for hearing in September and October last, when judgment was given in favour of respondents for the sum of £5,315 Gs 7d and £43G 4s 5d costs. The Chief Justice, in the course of his judgment, held that if the sale had been governed solely by the Sale of Goods Act respondents could not have succeeded, but the inclusion of the 1925 terms enabled respondents to succeed, for the appellants had not complied in full with those terms. The Chief Justice pointed out that responthemselves in some of their stores were not in the habit of complying strictly with these terms, and had adopted the same practice as appellants had done, of branding only a few of the sacks in each lot, but that, although that might have made respondents’ claim unmeritorious from a commercial viewpoint, it did not affect it at law. On the Bench are Justices Herdman. Reed, Adams and Ostler. The case is. proe- cling and is likely to ( last two