PAHIATUA DISTRICT COURT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIX, Issue 8140, 18 May 1906, Page 5

PAHIATUA DISTRICT COURT.

SENN v. NEW ZEALAND LOAN AND MERCANTILE AGENCY CO., LTD.

At the District Court, £ahiutua, the hearing was concluded yesterday, before his Honour Judge Haselden, of an action in which Adam John Senn, of Palmersfcon North, land agent, sued the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Co., Ltd. for the sum of £240 12s, being treble damages for pound breach, or in the alternative for £l5O 4s, wrongful con version of chattels. Mr C. E. Harden, of Palmerston North, appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr B. J Dolan, of Masterton, for the defendant Company. It was alleged on behalf cf the plaintiff that a lease was granted by him to Miss Flyger, of Palmerston North, for six months on April 11th, 1905; that Messrs Flyger Bros., for the lessee, were in possession of the premises on tbe 22nd of December 1905; that Cattle belonging to them were grazing on • the premises on the 22nd of December, 1905, when the landlord put a bailiff in possession to distrain for rent. It transpired that the cattle bad boen sold to Flyger Brothers by the defendant ComDany, but. had not been paid for, and, it was contended that defendant Company, in taking possession of the cattle from Flyger Bros, on the 3rd of January, 1906, while the bailiff was still in possession, to the knowledge of the defendant Company, was a pound breach or in the alternative a wrongful conversion. It was contended by Mr Dolbd for the defence that there was no right to distrain the term having euded -in. October; that if there was a right to distrain there was no sufficient impounding on which to found an aotion for pound breach, the cattle having been left in an unfenced seotion and having frequently got out of bis possession during the alleged impounding. He further argued that tbe aotion was a penal action, and that corporations were not included within the purview of the Statute of William and Mary, upon which the action was founded, and as to the alternative claim that the possession of the landlord was not sufficient to maintain an action for conversion. His Honour stated that there was no rAcorded case of this kind in the colony and that he would reserve judgment.