Ordered To Pay £630 To Auckland Rugby League

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30541, 9 September 1964, Page 14

Ordered To Pay £630 To Auckland Rugby League

(New Zealand Press Association)

HAMILTON, Sept. 8. John Sydney Cormack, company manager, of Auckland, was ordered to pay £630 costs together with disbursements and witnesses’ expenses to the South Auckland Rugby Football League in a reserved decision given by Mr Justice Richmond in the Supreme Court at Hamilton yesterday. Cormack Was allowed the sum of £lOO for two breaches of the lease covenant by the league. In the hearing, Cormack had been represented by Mr L. B. Inch and the league by Messrs D. L. Tompkins and D. D. Bathgate. Two actions and a counter claim were involved in the decision. The first action, brought by the league against Cormack, was begun in January, 1963, as a claim for rent of the Forest Lake Stadium, Hamilton. The rent was allegedly owing under a registered lease from the league to Cormack, who was using the stadium for speedway racing. It also sought the removal of a caveat which had been lodged by Cormack in August, 1956. Unpaid Rent Claims for unpaid rent payable before January 18, 1957, by the league, were statute barred, said his Honour. However, the league was entitled to judgment on its claim for £250 rent and £3O electricity charges. A counter claim begun by Cormack against the league in this action, failed. The second action was begun by Cormack against the league in July, 1963. In it he claimed £14,550 damages,

alleging that the league had broken the covenants of the stadium lease. His Honour said that the only breaches established to his satisfaction were that the playing field at the stadium, was at no material time completed in a proper and workmanlike manner and that the terraces, likewise, were not completed or grassed. There was no evidence to show that Cormack would have had any additional profit if the terraces had been completed. He awarded Cormack £lOO for these two breaches. The statement of claim alleged that certain covenants were entered into and broken by the league. It set out expenses to which Cormack was alleged to have been put and losses which he said he had suffered as a result.