Supreme Court MANAGER’S EVIDENCE ON MOWER CRITICISED

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28983, 26 August 1959, Page 7

Supreme Court MANAGER’S EVIDENCE ON MOWER CRITICISED

Strong criticism of the evidence of Mogens Ebbe Fraemohs, the former works manager of W. H. Price and Son, Ltd., was made by Mr R. W. Edgley, counsel for Pyramid Machines, Ltd., when he continued his address to Mr Justice Adams during the mower dispute hearing in the Supreme Court yesterday. Fraemohs’s evidence on the horse power of the Pyramid mower motor was somewhat erratic and unreliable and was to a large extent improvised, said counsel. His evidence that Pyramid Machines had given him the wrong specifications for the motor was not supported by the records of the defendant company, and he had admitted that no written communication had been sent to the plaintiffs advising them that they had given the wrong horse power for the motor. Fraemohs’s discovery that he had been given the wrong horse power must have been most shattering,” Mr Edgley added.

“The Court is entitled to infer that he had told this ‘fairy story’ to save either his own skin, or the defendant’s, or both.” Price and Son was a firm which had been shown to be meticulous in the keeping of records, and if there was any truth in Fraemohs’s contention that lie had been given the wrong horse power by the plaintiffs’ it would have been recorded somewhere.

“Not even Sherlock Holmes aided by Dr. Watson could have said from a study of the company's minutes that Pyramid Machines gave the wrong specifications,” said counsej.

Mr Edgley submitted that something should be implied under the heading of sales. Fraemohs had asked the directors of Price and Son for a revision of its sales policy so that the mower equipment could be sold.

“Over-confident ’ The Court was entitled to infer from that that Fraemohs, in taking on the mower job, had been over-confident of his own ability; that he had had ideas of making other hydraulic equipment either on behalf of the defendant or himself. Fraemohs had woken up to the fact that he was in rather a mess with the mower job. and his principal idea was to get out and drop the whole job. said Mr Edgley. On January 20. 1956. it was recorded in the defendant company’s minutes that it had been suggested that the mower project be dropped and salvaged. The suggestion, believed to have come from Fraemohs, was not sup-

ported by the directors of the company and he had been obliged to go on with the job. Two months later Fraemohs had sent in his resignation. There was one man, who until recently was a director of Price and Son—the only one who worked in the factory side of the business, said Mr Edgley. This was Mr Fred Price. A reference to Fraemohs’s resignation in Walter Price’s diary, dated March 14, 1956, read: “direct causes relations with F.D.P.” No satisfactory explanation of that entry had been given. It was significant and extraordinary that Fred Price had never been put forward as a witness for the defendant. He would have been a very unusual director if he had gone around like a horse in blinkers, never looking at the job in hand, said counsel. i