COMMENT BY BENCH

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 27, 13 November 1935, Page 4

COMMENT BY BENCH

PUBLIC TRUSTEE CRITICISED. FAILURE TO ABATE A NUISANCE. (Per Press Association). AUCKLAND, November 11. "The public Trustee has been extremely dilatory in attending to a matter affecting public health, ’* said Mr W. R. McKean, S.M., in the Onehunga Magistrate’s Court, when A. S. Faire, District Public Trustee, was cited as defendant in an information laid by the Manukau County Council charging him with having failed to abate a nuisance on a property in Mangere. The evidence of a sanitary inspector for the Manukau County Council showed that, after an outbreak of scarlet fever which had been traced to an overflowing cesspool on the property, the Health Department had ordered remedial measures to be taken. The witness said the property had been taken over by the Public Trustee, who had let the premises to tenants and had been collecting rent. The District Public Trustee had since last June been repeatedly warned to effect repairs to the drain, but had failed to do so until after an information had been laid.

Counsel for the defence contended that neither Faire nor the Public Trustee was the owner of the property, but he admitted that the District Public Trustee was administering the estate as agent for the owner, and was collecting rent. To effect repairs to a drain, he said, would be inconsistent with the powers of an agent, a man named Platt being the real owner. The Magistrate held that the Public Trustee, Wellington, was the legal owner, who was defined by the Act as the person entitled to receive the rent, whether on his own account or as the agent of any other person. He considered, therefore, that the wrong person had been cited as defendant. The Magistrate was consequently unable to enter a conviction against the defendant, and dismissed the information.