Recent Judgment TRADE ON PREMISES NOT REGISTERED

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29178, 12 April 1960, Page 10

Recent Judgment TRADE ON PREMISES NOT REGISTERED

Pratt v. Tattersfield

IBy a Legal Correspondent] Before Mr Justice F. B. Adams, at Christchurch. This case deals with the meaning and application of the provisions of the Health Act 1956 which

prohibit the carrying on of an offensive trade, otherwise than on registered premises. The particular operation was the manufacture of carpet felt.

A Magistrate dismissed an information laid under 5.54 (3) of the Health Act 1956, charging the defendant company with carrying on an offensive trade, namely, “flock manufacturing' or teasing of texile materials for any purpose," otherwise than on duly registered premises. Section 54 (3) applies to the carrying bn of “any offensive trade;" and “offensive trade" is defined in sJ as meaning “any trade, business, manufacture, or undertaking for the time being specified in the Third Schedule to this act;" and the schedule specifies (inter alia), “flock manufacturing, or teasing textile materials for any purpose.’*

Making of Underfelt For 10 year* past the company had carried on in its unregistered premsies the busines of making carpet underfelt. The process of manufacture was found by the Magistrate to be as follows: ‘‘Second-hand jute sacks purchased from sack merchants are the principal materials used. These are put into a'machine known as.a jute-breaker or sackbreaker in which a circular revolving drum with steel spikes breaks down .the sacks into the jute fibre in its more or less natural condition, and the product come* .out as a loose continuous mat

“From the sack-breaker the fibre is fed into a garnetting machine which combs out the fibre and binds it into webbing whence it is fed on to a moving carriage which laps the webbing into the required thicknesses for felting. “The next stage is the needling or stamping machine, which depresses the jute webbing into one side of a 6ft wide hessian, and a second needling machine depresses a second layer of webbing into the other side of the hessian. The manufacture of carpet felt is completed by breaking the edges and rolling the felt into rolls for delivery.” The Magistrate also found that the operation of breaking down the sacks constituted about onethird of the process of manufac-

hire. The parties were agreed on this point The Magistrate also held that while this process was not a manufacture of flock, it came within the expression “teasing of textile materials for any purpose.”

He held, however, that no offence had been committed, for the reason that the teasing of textile materials did not constitute the defendant company’s “trade, business, manufacture, or undertaking,” but was merely incidental to the manufacture of underfelt, and did not constitute a separate trade or manufacture. From the dismissal of the information, the informant a Christchurch City Council inspector appealed. Issue For Decision

Mr Justice F. B. Adams, who heard the appeal, said that, when the definition of “offensive trade" and the Schedule to the Health Act were read together, it was clear that something more was required than the mere teasing of textile materials; and that the teasing must be done in such circumstances as to constitute a “trade, business, manufacture, or undertaking." The question for decision, his Honour added, was whether the company was carrying on the trade, business, manufacture, or undertaking of teasing textile materials for any purpose. In the present case, his Honour continued, the company was carrying out the whole process of teasing textile materials, commencing with the raw materials in the form of second-hand sacks and the like, and bringing them finally to the state in which they could be used in the ensuing processes of its manufacture of underfelt

Reverting to the words of the statute, the learned judge could see no ground whatever for holding that the company did not “tease textile materials for a purpose," merely because its purpose was to use the teased materials in its own factory in order to produce a different end-product. If the point be relevant, It could be added that, as the magistrate found, the teasing process constituted about one-third of the whole manufacturing process, and was thus a very substantial part of the entire manufacturing process.

His Honour did not see any ground for holding that the teasing of textile materials in the way described was not done by the company in the way of “trade, business, manufacture, or undertaking.” It was part and parcel of its trade, business, manufacture, or undertaking as a manufacturer of underfelt. It constituted a carrying on of the trade, business, manufacture, or undertaking of teasing textile materials. Appeal Allowed

The- learned judge did not think it was necessary, in order that the statute should apply, that the teasing should constitute a separate trade or manufacture in which textile materials are teased in order to sell them as such. It was sufficient if the materials were teased for use in a further manufacturing process. The appeal was allowed. The case was remitted to the Magistrate’s Court with a direction to enter a conviction, and proceed oh it in due course of law.

The costs of the appeal, fixed at 10 guineas and disbursements, were to be paid by the company to the appellant Counsel: For the appellant, Hearn; for the respondent. Woodward.

Solicitors: For the appellant, Weston, Ward and Lascelles (Christchurch); for the respondent, Duncan, Cotterill and Company (Christchurch).