MILK DELIVERY IN CITY

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 113, 6 February 1937, Page 11

MILK DELIVERY IN CITY

Contravention of Act CONVICTION ENTERED Finding that Osmond Disley had agreed to sell milk to Tiffin’s, Ltd., and in pursuance of that agreement delivered milk in the city of Wellington, Mr. J. 11. Luxford, S.M., in a judgment delivered in the Magistrate's Court, Wellington, yesterday, convicted him of an offence against the Wellington City Milk Supply Act, 1919. The case was interwoven with the “milk shake” case in which Tiffin’s Ltd., milk bar proprietors, were charged with selling milk without a licence, and of being in possession of milk without a licence. The evidence in the latter case also applied to the case against Disley. After referring to agreements alleged to have been effected between defendant and Tiffin’s, Ltd., Mr. Luxford said the evidence showed that the agreements were nothing more than an outward and visible attempt to cloak the relationship between them. “Everybody is entitled to make such contracts as he chooses, to circumvent the intention of an Act of Parliament, and he may succeed in his purpose,” he added. “An Act, which restricts contractual rights is always strictly interpreted, and the court cannot close any loopholes that may have been left by the Legislature, even though those loopholes enable anyone to carry on in contravention of Parliament’s intention. That must be rectified by Parliament itself.

“The defendant was therefore free to take such steps as he wished to dispose in the city of Wellington of the milk produced on his farm so long as he did not contravene the penal sections of the Wellington Milk Supply Act, 1919. “If the circumstances caused me to believe that a bona fide lease of the land and chattels had been granted by the defendant to Tiffin’s, Ltd., he would be free from liability. But I do not believe that any bona fide transaction of that sort took place at all. The circumstances disclosed by the evidence are quite inconsistent with that. They are much more consistent with a straight-out sale by the defendant of 45 gallons of milk a day—half to be delivered as milk and half as cream and butter—in consideration of the weekly sum of £9.”