"A DISCHARGED SOLDIER"

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 256, 23 July 1920, Page 3

"A DISCHARGED SOLDIER"

IMPORTANT LEGAL POINT. In a reserved'judgment delivered yesterday'morning bv Mr. K Page '8.M., in the oaso or F. K. Pratt (Mr. 0. 0. Mazengarb) v. David Bankin (Mr. It. Kennedy) an important legal point in respect to discharged soldiers was involved. The plaintiff sought to obtain .possession of the tenement occupied by Bankin, who resisted the application on the ground that ho was a discharged soldier, also on the ground of undue ".hardship. Tho facts disclosed were that Kankin was called up for service In .the -Expeditionary Force, • was classed Fit. A in July, 1518, and received 55., a day's'par. .Ho was ordered to parado on November 6 for the purpose of coiner into camp, but on account of the Influenza 6pidemic.liis departure for camp was delayed. However, from November 6 his pay as'a soldier commenced, and ran on until December 4, when as a result of thp armistice ho wan notified that ho would not be required to so into camp On January.B 1913. the defendant again paraded aud.was given "leave without pay l'ritil further orders." By a genera}, order dated August ,7, 1919, all the members of the Expeditionary Force were, with certain; exceptions, discharged. The Magistrate duoted the wording of the particular sections of the War Amendment Act and the Military Service Act, and expressed the opinion that Rankin had been! a. member of the Expeditionary Force, that' he had received military pay, and that he was a "discharged soldier" within the meaning of the Act. The Magistrate said the defendant was a,married man with two young childreu, and was.in receipt of a fair, but not large, wage, and it was a question, whether an order. for possession ; should in any event be made against him, hut,he refused to make an order on the ground that the defendant was a discharged soldier and entitled to the protection given undor the Act.