ARCHITECTS' PLANS.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 43, 19 February 1909, Page 6

ARCHITECTS' PLANS.

- i i (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, Thursday. At the Supreme Court to-day the Board of Governors of Canterbury College claimed from C. J. Mountfort, architect, the possession of plans of the college buildings, valued at £459 2/-, and £10 damages for having refused to deliver the plans w;hen requested. The plans were prepared by defendant's father, Mr W. B. Mountfort, who died in 1898, and in 1906 the Board applied to the defendant to deliver the plans to them. At the time when the plans were prepared, the Christchurch Association of Architects had a regulation providing that plans and specifications should be the property of the architect, but no evidence was given that the Board had been made aware of this regulation, or that it was included in the contract between the Board and the architect. In his will, Mr W. B. Mountfort bequeathed, amongst other property, his plans. In respect to some of these, fees were payable if the work was proceeded with, and the testator ordered that the defendant and tlie defendant's brother and sister should receive these fees. For the defendant, it was stated that the only application made by the Board was for the original design of the cottage buildings, which design the defendant did not possess. Evidence was also given to the effect that, though Mr W. B. Mountfort had been the architect for many public and ecclesiastical buildings in different parts of the Dominion, no request had ever been made for the plans. After hearing the-evidence and legal argument, Mr Justice Denniston reserved judgment.