CHARGE AGAINST SOLICITOR.
THE LUXDOX CASE. By Telegraph.—Press Association Wellington, Oct. IT. In the Lundon case Mr. Von Haast for the Law Society, said that Lundor must havp known before June 12 ol Fletcher's drinking habits, and alio oi the theratensd action of his father-in' law and ot' Fletcher's desire to get monej from the bank and dissipate it in a flna' carousal to prevent his father-in-law get' ting it. He also knew t'hat the monej was on fixed deposit and that the bank manager had,allowed Fletcher to draw against it, but had declined to let bin operate further upon it. Mr. Lundon ought to have .gone to the manager and ascertained the facts before making a bargain to get the money from the bank for £WO. A small fee would have been all that was necessary, Unless an attion against the bank followed, no action had to be faced, • The difficulty was, as Lundon knew, to pfcr#uade the bank to a breach of the fixed deposit and to pay out. The money was obtained without trouble and £IOO wman exorbitant charge. Mr. Von Haast proceeded to argue that Lundon* explanation as to thia £IOO fee now given was different from that given to Mr. Ostler and the Law; Society. v 'Dr. Fitchett (counsel for Lundon) objected to the loan being gone into in court. He said it could be discussed, but was not a matter for disciplinary jurisdiction. Lundon's trust account pass-book was produced, allowing the money received from Fletcher had been paid into the account. Dr. Fitchett said he did not intend to make a microscopic analysis of the affidavits. There were two charges against Lundon—(l) an overcharge pf £IOO, and (2) failure to account. He submitted the transaction was not a charge, but a bet that Lundon would not get tho money from the bank when payment was made. Lundon recognised 1 that fo had not done work for tho £11)0, arid made an ofl'cr to'do other work'. He submitted authorities which showed that mere overcharge, no matter how exorbitant, was not a ground, in the absence of fraud, for the exercise of the Courts disciplinary jurisdiction. As to the second charge of not furnishing account, -Mie answer was, he submitted, that Lundon treated the transaction w a loan, and the relation of the trustee and costuique trust did not exist, and thefe , was therefore no obligation to account.' In conclusion, he Contended that everything Lundon had done had been all for Fletecher's benefit, and that that was a conclusive answer to the charge of pro* fessional misconduct. Mr. Jilair supported his leader's contentions. Argument'had not concluded when the Court rose,
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TDN19171018.2.41
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Taranaki Daily News, 18 October 1917, Page 5
Word count
Tapeke kupu
444CHARGE AGAINST SOLICITOR. Taranaki Daily News, 18 October 1917, Page 5
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Taranaki Daily News. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.