ADMINISTRATION OF ESTATE

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23445, 27 September 1941, Page 5

ADMINISTRATION OF ESTATE

CASE IN COURT OF APPEAL (P.A.) WELLINGTON, September 26. To-day completes the first week of the hearing in the Court of Appeal of the case Of Hall and others: v. the Guardian Trust and Executors Company of New Zealand. Ltd., and others. The week has been occupied by Mr W. D. Lysnar taking the Court through the very extensive notes _of evidence taken during the hearing in the Supreme Court, and the judgment of Mr Justice Callan in that Court, which of itself occupies 179 printed pages of the case on appeal. The main submission developed by Mr Lysnar in his address up to this stage is that the evidence reveals so many irregularities, so many things omitted, and so many illegal agts performed by the Guardian Trust, that it is unreasonable to suppose that these irregularities, omissions and illegalities have arisen in good faith, and the Court will be compelled to the view that fraud bn the part of the Guardian Trust and conspiracy between it and the banks concerned have been established. Cne of the main alleged irregularities on which Mr Lysnar relies, and which he is seeking to establish from the evidence, is improper communication of confidential matters relating to the late Mr Hall’s financial position. That communication, he says, passed between the two banks during Mr Hall’s lifetime. Mr Lysnar contends that this communication gives the beneficiaries under Mr Hall’s will an action against the two banks. Mr Lysnar in his address made it clear that he absolves Mr F. W. Nolan from all charges of fraud, and that the conspiracy which he alleges against the other respondents is not criminal conspiracy, but merely conspiracy which is actionable at the suit of the appellants. Mr Lysnar also contends that fraud is established against the respondent. the Guardian Trust, if he establishes any form of wrong doing or illegality, whether unintentional or otherwise, by that company during its administration of the estate, and that it is not necessary for him to prove fraud in the more generally accepted meaning of the term. Mr Lysnar’s address will be resumed to-morrow.