Supreme Court “Pyramid Directors Told Untruth About Mower”

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29002, 17 September 1959, Page 7

Supreme Court “Pyramid Directors Told Untruth About Mower”

Allegations that the directors of Pyramid Machines, Ltd., had told “a series of untruths” and “preposterous stories” about the performance of the 1955 experimental mower were made by Mr R. A. Young, senior counsel for W. H. Price and Son, Ltd., when the hearing of the mower dispute was continued in the Supreme Court yesterday before Mr Justice Adams.

Mr Young said that one of the directors of Pyramid Machines, David Gordon Latimer, had been “careless and reckless” in what he had said and written about the performance of the mower before the agreement had been entered into by the two firms, Latimer had agreed that he had told Price and Son’s works manager that the experimental mower had been given “full and complete field-tests,” said counsel. He had also written to Ward and Company claiming that 500 acres had been cut by the mower, and describing the various types of cutting it had done.

Put to proof on the question of field-testing, the plaintiff had called witnesses to give evidence of the acreages mown, and had produced a list of farmers on whose properties the work had been carried out.

One witness had said that, working about 14 hours a day, he had cut an average of 300 acres a week during the three weeks he had the mower, Mr Young said. “Even giving credit to the plaintiff for all it could prove the very maximum the mower could have cut in those three weeks was 100 acres, which was limited to three properties,” he added. The list supplied by the plaintiff had contained the names of 17 farmers, but if the mower had worked for a week on one farm then the plaintiff had proved “out of the mouths of its own witnesses” that the mower could not have been mowing on any of the other farms listed, and that it could not have done the other work deposed to by the witnesses. This was the crucial period during which the mower was to have been field-tested before the parties entered into their agreement, counsel said.

“On the evidence as I see it the mower was not fully and adequately field-tested and had not cut the variety of crops that Latimer alleged.” When the parties had met in a solicitor’s office on March 4, 1955, the plaintiffs had expressed' satisfaction with the mower’s performance during the three weeks. I submit that this episode lends emphasis to Latimer’s conviction that field-testing was something that interfered with his company’s financial activities ” said Mr Young. ‘ , “Exaggerated Claims” Either through ignorance, or because he was misled by his partner Rex Baker, Latimer had exaggerated the mower’s performance thus making it sell more easily. It might well be that he did not appreciate the importance to Price and Son of knowing that agricultural workers had field-tested the machine to their satisfaction.

The defendant’s case rested on its having made the experimental mower available to the plaintiff for field-testing, and that it had relied on the results as conveyed by Latimer before entering into the contract.

Latimer was apparently oblivious to the difficulties he was creating if he passed on only half the information to Price and Son, counsel said. He had been carried away and had been careless and reckless as to what he said and wrote about the mower. From the time of the 1954 show his only concern was to get the manufacturing under way. The evidence given by Geoff. Baker as to the daily performance of the mower and the total acreages cut during the three weeks was “plainly a series of untruths,” and the same applied to his brother Rex, who had made

specific reference to farmers for whom the mowing had been done, said Mr Young. “I submit that Rex Baker did not realise that there would be any farmers in the district who would come forward and give evidence on behalf of the defendant. There was not, and could not be any justification for calling him to give such untruthful evidence.”

This had taken up a good deal of his Honour's time and had caused the defendant tremendous expense not only in the conduct of the case, but also in calling witnesses so that the facts could be placed fairly and squarely before the Court. “Those persons who engaged upon such conduct and placed such preposterous stories before the Court should not be entitled to benefit from their wrongdoing,” said Mr Young. “Even when offering themselves as witnesses in rebuttal these directors still maintained this pretence that the mower had mown a minimum of 500 acres.”