DEBTS FOR JEWELS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 December 1939, Page 6

DEBTS FOR JEWELS

SOCIETY HOSTESS MUST PAY. Transactions involving £62,000 were mentioned in the King’s Bench Division, London, during an action brought recently by a firm of jewellers to decide whether a beautiful society hostess or her 80-year-old husband should pay for a £5,500 necklace. Judgment was given for Cartier Limited, of Bond Street, for £5,500 against Mrs Marguerite Vivienne Woolley-Hart, of Princes Gate. Her husband, Mr Arthur WoolleyHart. received judgment and costs against Cartier Limited, who, however, were allowed to add his costs to those received from Mrs Woolley-Hart. Mr Wynn Werninck. for Messrs Cartier, told the court that though living together. Mr and Mrs Woolley-Hart did not quite see eye to eye in regard to certain expenditure. In July, 1936, Mrs Woolley-Hart inspected some jewellery at Cartiers including a £11.500 diamond ring, which her husband bought, and the diamond and emerald necklace, the price ol which the firm agreed to reduce from £6,500 to £5,500. Mrs Woolley-Hart said that her husband was providing the money, and it was arranged that £5.500 should be paid in four instalments. When by December. 1936. no payment had been made. Cartier's asked Mrs WoolleyHart to settle the matter. They also referred to another transaction over a diamond ring which she had bought at Monte Carlo for £45.000. Later the firm was referred to Mr Woolley-Hart for payment, but his solicitors wrote stating that he had never agreed to pay for the necklace and that it had been bought by his wife without his knowledge and approval. The £45.000 transaction was eventually cleared up after an action had been threatened by Cartier's French

Giving judgment. Mr Justice Hilbery pointed out that Mrs Woolley-Hart had said she could pay in instalments a.' and when she received ihe money from her husband. Nothing cotild be plainer than that she was herself making tlvpurchase individually and not for her husband through her agency.