DISMANTLING A HOUSE.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 November 1919, Page 6

DISMANTLING A HOUSE.

TENANT'S CLAIM FOR DAMAGE. HOSPITAL BOARD AND CONTRACTORS SUED. What was described by counsel as disgraceful conduct was related in the New j Plymouth Magistrate's Court yesterday I morning before Mr. T. A. B. Bailey, S.M., when Claude Hoskin brought an action for general and special damages amounting to £192 9s Cd against the Taranaki Hospital and Charitable Aid Board and Messrs Boon Bros., contractors, in respect to damage done to his property by reason of their action in entering upon a dwelling house occupied by him and proceeding to dismantle and remove the same without having given him proper notice to vacate the place. Mr. H. R. Billing appeared for plaintiff and Mr. Ronald H. Quilliam represented defendants. Mr. Billing said plaintiff was an employee of the firm of Hoskin Bros. He was a married man, and occupied, for some time prior to March last, a* small house at the back of the Public Hospital. At the time he went into it the place was privately owned, and he occupied it as Mrs. Bramley's tenant for about two years. Subsequently the Hospital Board purchased the property as part of a site for the new nurses home. The same arrangements as to the payment of rent were continued with the new owners of the place. When a contract was let for the building of the nurses' home to Messrs. Boon Bros., plaintiff was served with a notice to quit the house in a week's time, though the rent was always paid on monthly instalments. Mr. Billing pointed out that in any case the notice was not the requisite calendar month's notice, and plaintiff was therefore still the rightful occupier of the place. The Board threatened plaintiff several times until on March 1 the contractor's men came on to the property and commenced to dismantle the house and interfere with plaintiffs right of possession. The position at that time was that plaintiff had five children and his wife was about to be confined with the sixth child. Directly his wife went away to the nursing home the men commenced to pull the house down. They took out the windows, pulled down the chimneys, cut off the water supply and gas service, took away an outhouse, pulled down a fowlhouse and let the fowls all out, did sundry damage to furniture and generally made a mess of everything. Plaintiff was left in this place with his' five children and had been unable to get another house. His wife was away at the nursing home for two weeks, and when she came back, this house was the only place she had to come to with her new baby. She became ill and could not look after her child, and some of the children became ill and he had to get the doctor and medicine for them. He then put the matter in the (hands of his solicitors, who gave notice to ihe Hospital Board and the contractors that they would be held liable for, any damage suffered by plaintiff no account of their action, and forbidding them from entering on the premises. That had no effect. Ultimately plaintiff took Mr. Day (Borough Inspector) up and showed him the place. He saw the Board and they allowed plaintiff to go into another house belonging to them. Mr. Billing characterised the action of the Board as disgraceful. Here was a young man with a wife and five children, and expecting a sixth, who had had in the first place to accept a very inferior house, and then when he was unable to get out of it, the Board and their contractors swooped down upon and dismantled his house. He submitted that the case was one for substantial damages. Evidence was given by plaintiff, who said the whole position had been a most trying one, and had so worried him that he had felt on several occasions like doing away with himself. It was a pitiable position for a man to see his wife and family in. He admitted the Hospital Board had not treated him bad-

Jn the course of cross-examination by llr. Quilliam, witness said the men came on and commenced to take clothes lines and fences down before his wife went to the nursing home. He could not remember when his wife went to the home, or the date of the child's birth. Mr. Quilliam took witness in detail through the various items in the claim. In reply to questions as to his efforts to get a house after getting notice to quit, witness said he was still hunting house. The one he was now in had been condemned and he had had notice to get out of it. A BROKEN HOME. In reply to Mr. Billing, plaintiff's wife said she went into the home on March 8- Prior to thatthe contractor's men had taken dftwn fences and left the house all exposed to the street. She remained in the nursing home a fortnight. She gave a very vivid description of the condition in which she found the house on -returning from the home. It had been moved nearer to one of the boundaries, and was down on the ground, off its piles. The kitchen range wns in the middle of the floor, the linolepis were torn about, and furniture very much knocked about. There were no chimneys in the place, no will-" er or gas supply, and the children became ill, and so did ske. The family remained in this house for two weeks after witness returned from the nursing home. She was unable to feed the baby herself, and to make humanised milk in the place was an impossibility. Charles Christiansen, laborer, who was employed by Boon Bros., deposed to assisting to shift the house back on the section. Hoskins asked him to have a look at the furniture, which seemed to him to be piled up in one room. It would get bumped somewhat in the process of moving the house. The furniture had evidently been stacked up in the room before lie got there. In reply to Mr. Quilliam he said he could not say he had heard any sound of breaking furniture or crockery while the house was being moved. The house was fairly old and some of the timbers in the floor collapsed. Wm. Harris and Aaron Medway also gave evidence as to the state of the house and the condition of the furniture when called in by Hoskin to see the place. Both said they would not like to have to "live" in a place in the condition of that house. . In reply to Mr. Quilliam both admitted they had not seen the interior of Hoskin's house before'or since that time. Beginald Day, borough inspector, said he inspected the house on account of complaints mads by Hoskin. H< hud

represented the position to the secretary of the Hospital Board, and between them they had arranged that the Hoskins' should go into another house belonging 'to the Board, which was occupied by a mpfn named Brown. Witness had had occasion to straighten Hoskin up on one or two occasions on account of the untidy state of the outside of the house he lived in. He persisted in bringing horses oh to a section where previous tenants had had gardens, and in consequence from the filth about, it was impossible for a woman to keep the interior of the house clean and tidy. THE DEFENCE. In setting out the case for defendants Mr. Quilliam said the building of a new nurses' home was an urgent matter, and the Hospital Board was anxious to get the job completed as early as possible. Boon Bros, were the successful tenderers, and they had understood that Hoskin had been given the notice to quit. As a matter of fact the whole trouble had arisen through the mistaken idea of the secretary of the Board that as the rent was paid weekly the only notice required was a week's notice. From that time on both\the Board and the contractors had looked upon Hoskin as a trespasser. The secretary had been under the impression that as Hoskin had not asked for any extra time, he had vacated. The Board and the contractors admitted illegal acts, but it was perfectly clear that they had been done as decently as illegal acts could be done. The Board had acted wrongly and had offered to indemnify Hoskin in respect to damage sustained. The Board has received a claim from Hoskin's solicitors for £2OO general damages and £8 special damages, and they regarded this as an attempt to fleece the Board and the contractors, who believed there had been practically no damage, and they offered £lO in settlement v the claim. This was rejected, but w< renewed later on, and no reply was received to the offer, evidently tje plaintiff preferring to trust to. getting a sympathy award of the Court. The Board had, and was still willing to pay reasonable damages. Mr. Quilliam submitted that there was actually no basis for connecting the damage alleged with the acts of the workmen. The forem:.had believed that when Mrs. Hoskin h.-d gone away she had gone for good. Th/ Hoskin family were not in the plac, when he went out to' the property, and they had not returned when he left r,„ night. He had no idea- that a man would bring his wife back to that place. Evidence was given by E. T. Holden «;■, to the notice to Hoskin to vacate the place, and also as to getting Brown to let Hoskin go into his house. He had no idea, until the Borough Inspector came to him, that the Hoskins had not gone out of the house. When he found n place for them to go io he sent a carrier up, and the Board p-j.id for the removal I of their furniture. £2O DAMAGES. Frank- L. Hartnell, foreman for the contractors, said he had no intention of doing anything to the house until Mrs. Hoskin went away. The house was in a position which blocked the. progress of the contract on the nurses' home? raid he had considerable difficulty in getting on with the work on that account. °He thought that when Mrs. Hoskin had gone away they had gone for good. Under 3 the conditions of the contract the bricks in the chimney of Hoskin's cottage were required for another cottage that had been removed from the site. He had told Hoskin that he wanted the chimney, and if he could, not get it away at a certain time the cost of removal would be increased. Hoskin had asked him to leave the chimney up, and later he himself would cart the bricks to where they were wanted. So far as (he window"; were concerned, the only window taken out was, a small one in 'a lean-to at the back of the house. In reply to the Bench, witness said he saw Hoskin on at least two occasions while the moving of the house was being carried out, and lie raised no objection to what was being done. In reply to Mr Billing, witness said lie had been surprised to find, after the cottage was moved, that Hoskin had been sleeping in it at nights. Frank Tonks, employed by Messrs Boon Bros., in charge of the labourers on the nurses' home contract, deposed to certain work done in connection with the removal of the house Hoskins' were in. He. was only inside the house once, and hat was in company with Detective Fitzgibbon. He saw no sign of damaged furniture. The workmen were sympathetic towards the Hoskins, and lie believed some of them had tried to get a place for them to go to. In reply to Mr. Billing, witness denied ever threatening to pull down the house over the heads of the occupants. In reply to the Magistrate, witness said there was no sign of the furniturehaving been knocked about during th" process of moving the house. He thought it was impossible for anything of that sort to happen. In giving judgment, His Worship said it was a most Unfortunate case. The Hospital Board were not the people who should turn tenants out of a house Inputting the roof off, and he did not think they were aware of what was done. Personally he was surprised at Mrs. Hoskin going back to the place, and that she had hot gone straight to the Board and asked for assistance. Although the Board had acted wrongly in the first place, lie did not think it was a case for exemplary damages. He was not at all satisfied as to how the damage was caused. He wave judgment, therefore, for £2O, which he considered would cover any damage that plaintiff had sustained. Costs were allowed according to scale. '