NOT DISTRAIN ABLE

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 52, 25 November 1930, Page 10

NOT DISTRAIN ABLE

Some of the Mecca Oil SALESMEN’S CLAIM FAILS According to a reserved judgment given by Mr. Justice Reed iu tlieSuprcme Court yesterday, a quantity of oil purchased by Morton Barker Pimental, before his arrest and subsequent sentence to imprisonment ou a number of charges concerned with the Mecca Oil Company, is not his property, but that of the Soeony Proprietary, Ltd., Melbourne, through which it was purchased. Tlie oil, therefore, is not distrainable as the goods of Pimental. The action which Mr. Justice Reed decided was an originating summons by the Soeony Proprietary, Ltd. (Mr. E. F. Hadfield). The defendants were Robert Keith Beggand E. W. Wakefield (Mr. Treadwell and Mr. James), two of the salesmen employed by Pimental, who, with others, seized upon the oil directly it arrived in New Zealand under several distress warrants on unsatisfied judgments obtained against Pimental. Mainly, the action turned on the interpretation of a clause in the contract entered into between Pimental and Phillips, Pike and Co., agents in Wellington of the Soeony Proprietary, Ltd., reading; “Shipping of the goods to constitute delivery, and each shipment is to be deemed as a searate contract.” His Honour, however, said this clause presented no difficulty—it was pure surplusage. The contract had to be read together. If it had been intended to pass the property in the goods on shipment the invoice and the bill of lading would have gone to the Mecca Oil Company; ;the bill of lading, with a demand draft attached, was tendered to the Mecca Oil Company and refused. “Upon a consideration of the contract and all the surrounding circumstances,” said his Honour, “I find that the intention of the parties was that the property in the goods should not pass until payment of the demand draft. I have no hesitation in arriving at the conclusion that the property in the goods never passed from the Soeony Proprietary. Ltd., and I answer the question accordingly.” The plaintiffs, he added, were entitled to costs, which he fixed at £2l, and disbursements.