RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2016, 6 March 1890, Page 2

RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT.

Geraldine—Wednesday, March 5, 189®,

[Before Captain C. A. Wray, R.M.] PROHIBITION. Mrs T. Somerville, of Woodbury, applied for a prohibition order against her husband, Thomas Somerville. Order granted.

CIVIL CASES. E, H. Pearpoint y. W. Davie— Judgment summons.—Judgment was given for the amount to be paid forthwith, or in default 21 days’ imprisonment. Same v. H. Parker—Claim £2 2s M, balance of judgment summons.—Defendant said he was in receipt of £2 2s per week, and asked for time to pay the amount. —The amount had been owing for about two years.— Judgment was given for the amount to be paid in two months. J. Dean v. T. Moore—Claim lls 3d, balance of a harvest contract. —This was a dispute about the balance of harvest wages, and after a very patient and exhaustive hearing judgment was given for plaintiff for 5s 9d, the costs, 6a, to be divided equally by both parties. MC LEAN V. POSTLETHWAITE. Plis Worship gave judgment in this case as follows The claim is for shearing 300 sheep. The agreement under which the shearers were engaged at the station was posted in a prominent position in the shed, and the defendant and others saw the plaintiff reading them before he was engaged. The rate of payment was fixed at 16a 8d per hundred, and shearers leaving before the flock was shorn were to forfeit earnings. After working a week plaintiff announced his intention oi leaving. His employer called his attention to the conditions, and told him if he left then he would not be paid. He nevertheless left, and now alleges that he did not read the conditions and claims for the work done at the rate mentioned. It seems to me unlikely that the plaintiff was not fully acquainted with the terms of the contract. He seems to have relied on his right to recover after the shearing in spite of the conditions under which he was engaged, and he had ample means of satisfying himself fully as to the terms of his engagement. Quoting from Mr Justice Willis in Lewis and another v. McKay, 38 L,J. Exchequer, p. 66, he says, referring to the case of Van Toll v. S.E. Railway Coy., 11 and if a person who seeks to impose a liability by contract on another chooses to abstain from reading the terms of the document under which liability is sought to be expressed by the person with whom he is dealing, the inference is that he has chosen to accept those terms without giving himself the trouble to ascertain what they are. The plaintiff is not then entitled to recover in terms of the agreement. I The Court then rose.