CLAIM FOR TRESPASS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 209, 4 September 1925, Page 5

CLAIM FOR TRESPASS.

IMPRISONMENT OF STOCK • KING COUNTRY FARM CASE. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) HAMILTON, Thursday. An interesting claim for damages in respect of trespass was brought in the Supreme Court, Hamilton, yesterday, by Karl Joseph Hegglin, farmer, of Aria, against George Sargent, farmer, of Ohakune and Kopaki. Plaintiff was represented by Mr. G. P. Findlay (Auckland), and with him Mr. E. M". Mackersey (Te Kuiti), and defendant by Mr. J. D. Vernon (Te Kuiti).

In a brief outline of the ease, Mr. Findlay stated thai plaintiff was formerly the owner of a block of land, partly freehold and partly leasehold, known as the Rangitoto block, of 103S acres, situated near Kopaki. Owing to the slump the mortgagee closed on and sold the leasehold portion of the property to defendant, Sargent. Plaintiff retained the freehold portion. The leasehold contained 440 acres of grassland, , and the freehold only 40 odd acres. Sargent gave plaintiff a month to remove his stock from the leasehold, but as the sheep and cattle on the place were approaching breeding time, it was impossible to remove them. Hegglin therefore wrote to Sargent and offered to lease the property till the following January. Sargent agreed to this on payment of £150 being guaranteed liy Abrahams and Williams, Ltd. To this plaintiff agreed, and arranged for the guarantee. The next he heard was that his sheep had been mustered by Sargent's men. Plaintiff then went down to the yards and freed the sheep again. Guthrie, Sargent's head man, then warned plaintiff not to get up against Sargent as he was a wealthy man and would leave plaintiff poor if he fought him. The next step was when a party of Sargent's men started to fell the bush line between the freehold and leasehold properties, cutting off all the tracks and imprisoning a large number of cattle on the freehold, from where they could not get away, and where there was very little feed. As a result, 42 cattle were missing, either dead from starvation or from eating tutu in the fallen bush. Forty odd others which were eventually got out were "crow-poor" and starved almost to death.

Mr. Findlay said it was not often lie asked for punitive damages in a case, but in the present one he was going to ask the jury to grant every penny claimed. This was a case in which a wealthy man, knowing that a poor man was down and almost out. had treated Mm in a most tyrannical way, and had practically said to him, "I am the big man with plenty of money, and to fight mc is to court ruin." He had oppressed and harassed this unfortunate man, and the jury was entitled to award plaintiff the fullest measure of damages.

Plaintiff therefore claimed £69 as damages in respect of the depreciation of the 42 cattle; £147 for cattle lost through the wrongful acts of defendant; £6 damages for posts wrongfully removed;. £50 general damages in respect of trespass, and £250 as general damages in respect of the felling of the bush line. Evidence was given by plaintiff along lines outlined by his counsel.

The case is still proceeding.