SUBSTANTIAL CLAIM.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 126, 9 March 1935, Page 6

SUBSTANTIAL CLAIM.

COMMENTS BY CHIEF JUSTICE.

(Per Press Association). WELLINGTON, March 8. The. hearing was continued to-day ot the case in which James Marshall is proceeding against William Cable and Co., in which the plaintiff is claiming £3OOO for alleged wrongful dismissal. Giving evidence after the conclusion of case for the deience, Marshall denied the, allegations of neglect or incompetence in connection with various engineering contracts undertaken by the firm. He denied that he demanded any bonus before going on with the work on the steamer Golden Harvest. He had been working without any real difference until the question of bonuses arose at the end of the financial year, when he refused £SO as a bonus on. an alleged year's profit ot Addressing the Court, Mr fotevenson, counsel for defendant, said that defendant alleged that plaintiff, while on the way) to the Golden Harvest job m James Cable's motor car, had demanded a bonus of £250 before he would commence the job. It was strange under those conditions for a man to put such a request. The Chief Justice: No honourable firm would keep in its employ a man who is what an ordinary citizen would call a blackmailer. Even if by) dismissing him they risked an action for damages they should dismiss him immediately.

Counsel agreed that such circumstances as he alleged amounted to a kind of blackmail. Even if not legal blackmail it was what an ordinary citizen would call blackmail. A little later His Honor said that there would be justification under such circumstances as counsel alleged for any ma a being dismissed immediately. Aiiy self-respecting employer would immediately dismiss such a man. "Yet Cable did not dismiss him, but kept him on. There was not a word in the minutes, although all previous matters are harked back to, and put in long minutes, but not a word of this."