JOINT AND SEVERALS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 282, 21 April 1913, Page 3

JOINT AND SEVERALS

The ' - j. and 5,," or joint and several guarantee, has been the means of financing most of the dairy faetorv ventures in this district. This guarantee gives the bank power to collect the amount guaranteed from any one of the guarantors. In the case of the Puniwhakau Dairy Company, now in liquidation, the Bank of Xew South Wales called up the guarantee, and sued A. Liehmann, one of the signatories, for the full amount, £2477. This lie paid. He is now engaged in collecting a share from each of his 38 co-guarantors. In the S.M. Court at Stratford on Friday, he secured judgment against T. Hastie for £7l 2s, a thirty-ninth share of the amount lie had had to pay. Mr. E, Spence appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr. Rutherford for the defendant, who . set up as one plank in his defence that Hastie had given notice in 1010 cancelling the guarantee, and that the guarantee was more than six years old, the Statute of Limitations would apply; and that the guarantee had become unenforceable by reason of the absence of full disclosure being made to all guarantors of the fact that the account had been closed. Mr. Rpence, replying, said there was no loophole for escape. The plaintiff had put up the full amount of the guarantee, and he was now, as the law clearly provided, entitled to get contribution from each of his co-guaran-tors, and in the end each and everyone of the guarantors should pay his full and exact proportion of the total debt. The Bank could make anyone of the guarantors pay the whole, but in the end cac.il guarantor must staitd up to his share. This view was taken bv the S.M. ,