LONG LITIGATION

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 138, 24 March 1939, Page 5

LONG LITIGATION

DISMISSAL OF A MOTION. THE D. G. WRIGHT APPEAL. NO POSTPONEMENT OF HEARING. ( (United Press Association —Copyright.) (Received This Day, 9.45 a.m.) LONDON, March 23. The Privy Council ‘dismissed with costs a motion to postpone the hearing of the appeal D. G. Wright v. the New Zealand Farmers’ Cooperative Association of Canterbury. The New Zealand Court of Appeal on July 9, 1936, granted final leave to appeal to the Privy Council in the case Douglas George Wright v. the New Zealand Farmers’ Co-operative Association!, Limited. The case was first before the Court of Appeal about the middle' of 1935, when D. G. Wright and Hugh Black, of Ashburton, farmers (Mr R. L. Saunders) appealed against the judgment of Mr Justice Johnston, given in Christchurch in October, 1934, in the in the actions brought by them against the Co-operative Association. Wright, who had mortgaged to the company a property known as “Cattle Peaks,” claimed a declaration! that he be credited with the full amount of the purchase money contracted to be paid by one Little, to whom the company, under its power of sale in the mortgage, sold the property on terms under an agreement for sale and purchase; and damages amounting to sums of £ll7B and £SOOO in respect of the alleged wrongful and negligent sale of the property and the stock thereon. Black and Wright together claimed accounts and £1096 damages in respect of the alleged wrongful and negligent sale of the property and the stock thereon. They together claimed accounts and £1096 damages in respeqt of alleged wrongful sale by the company of the property known as “Goodhurst,” and £2OOO damages for the alleged improvident sale of stock thereon.

The company counter - claimed against Wright for the sum of £11,816 10s 4d, and interest thereon being the amount alleged to be owing to the company by William and Robert Nosworthy, and guaranteed by Wright and against Black and Wright £2234 13s 4d, with interest, as the balance due on their current account with 'the company. At the trial, Wright and Black abandoned all issues other than that as to whether Wright was entitled to be credited with the. whole of the purchase money on the sale of “Cattle Peaks.” This question was, however, one of importance, inasmuch as it involved determination of the general question whether if, in the exercise of the power of sale implied in the memorando of mortgage under, the Land and Transfer Act, a mortgagee sells on terms under an agreement for sale and purchase an immediate credit for the whole of the purchase money payable by the purchaser is to he given to the mortgagor by the mortgagee, and the mortgagor is pro tanto discharged from •his personal covenant to pay. The Court gave judgment on July 12, 1935, dismissing the plaintiff’s claim and referring hack to the Supreme Court the question of the association’s counter-claim against Wright. On September 27, 1935, Mr R. L. Saunders, counsel for plaintiffs, asked the Court of Appeal to review and reconsider its judgment in certain particulars, hut this the court refused to do, other thari to order that the order of the court as to the counter-claim upon the guarantee should be varied so that instead of the counter-claim being wholly remitted to the Supreme Court, the Registrar of the Supreme Court was empowered to take such evidence as the parties desired, the evidence then to be transmitted *to the Court of Appeal for further argument on the question of liability. The further appeal was unanimously dismissed, and leave was then sought to remove the case to the Privy Council.