APPEAL DISMISSED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 179, 1 August 1939, Page 14

APPEAL DISMISSED.

UNPAID RATE PENALTY.

FARMER LOST HIS NOTE

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) DU.VEDIX, Monday. "In my view the plaintiff was properly placed on the defaulters' list in the circumstances disclosed in this case and was properly excluded from voting." states Mr. Justice Hlair in his reserved judgment in a case in which an appeal was made against the decision of Mr. J R. Batholomew, S.M. His Honor dismissed an action brought against the Peninsula County Council by Alexander Porterh'eld, farmer, of Ma can drew Bay.

I'orterfield owned properties in three ridings in the county, and at the hearing before Mr. Bartholomew it was argued on his behalf that his name had "been wrongfully placed on the defaulting ratepayers' list, as he had failed to pay tho 11/ jK-nalty charges on his rates in one of the three ridings. He had consequently been deprived of the right to vote in all three ridings at the election of councillors, and he had claimed £.">0 damages from tho council. This action had been dismissed by the magistrate. His Honor, in a lengthy judgment, dismissed the appeal, with cost*? of £5 5/.

"Tho learned magistrate based his dismissal of the appellant's case upon the ground that the county clerk, in placing the appellant on the defaulters' list, was acting in a quasi-judicial capacity," said his Honor. "There is eomething to be said for the soundness of this view, but I thought it advisable in this, case to examine other aspects of the ease first, and on the conclusion I have come to it is not necessary for me to go into this further point."