“POUND STERLING”

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 27, 13 November 1935, Page 6

“POUND STERLING”

BRITISH CURRENCY MEANT.

TAILOR’S CLAIM SUCCEED,S.

(Per Press Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day.

In a reserved judgment to-day, Mr Justice Northcroft said that “pounds sterling” meant British, not New Zealand, currency. He was asked to decide a claim by Charles Francis Martin De Bierger, a tailor, against J. ‘Ballantyne and Co., Ltd., drapers, where plaintiff maintained that under an agreement made in England to pay him £7OO a year in sterling, meant in English money.

The Judge also said that plaintiff was entitled to recover interest on the deficiencies in payments mado_ by defendant over three years. The Judge said the word “sterling” in the agreement was not used in a meaningless sense, but when linked with the word “pbunds” had* a definite meaning, recently emphasised; by litigation in the English court's. He did not regard “sterling” as meaning merely legal tender, and considered the parties had used the words “pounds sterling” and meant pounds

in English currency and thus specified the measure of defendants obligation. He was not prepared to say that the . word “sterling” got into the agreement by 'oversight, but in any ease the Court could not ignore its presence.