APPEAL COURT JUDGMENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 253, 23 October 1907, Page 5

APPEAL COURT JUDGMENTS.

A DIFFICULT QUESTION. CBy Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. In the case of Turin Paki and others v. Finlayson and another, Sir Robert Stout delivered a written judgment, in which he held that the predecessors of the appellants -were, nnder a Crown grant, tenants-in-common, not joint tenants, and that, therefore, on the death of one of the grantees, his estate descended to his successors, and did not go to the surviving grantees. That being so, the survivors could not convey the share of the deceased grantee. In his Honor's opinion the decision, given in the court below should be reversed, and judgment given for appellants. .Mr Justice Williams, however, held that the grantees were joint tenants; that on the death of one of them the survivors took his share, and could legally convey it. I Judges Denniston, Chapman and "Cooper concurred in separate judgments with the judgment of Mr Justice Williams, and the result was that the appeal was dismissed with costs on the highest scale as from a distance. Mr Blair, on behalf of the appellants, asked leave of the Court "to appeal to the Privy Council. The question arose whether the Court had jurisdiction to grant such leave, the judgment appealed from not being final but an interlocutory judgment, and the application was adjourned till the next sitting of the Court of Appeal. FITCHETT v. WELLINGTON CORPORATION. In the appeal ease Fitchctt and another v. the Corporation of Wellington, in which' a new point was raised that, owing to the provisions of the law forbidding the fouling of land in a watershed devoted to the water supply of a community, compensation could not be claimed on the basis of the value of the land for building or dairy purposes. The Appeal Court held that, under section -305 of the Municipal Corporations Act, the respondents had no rights over the claimant's land, and could not restrain the latter from using the land either for dairying or building. Judgment was given for the claimants • with costs to be fixed by the Compensation Court.