BAILIFF PROSECUTED

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 213, 4 June 1943, Page 4

BAILIFF PROSECUTED

Charge .Of Causing Street

Nuisance Dismissed

An unusual legal point but one having an important bearing on the , work of bailiffs was raised by the Wellington City, Council prosecuting in the Magistrates Court, Wellington, yesterday, Arthur John Holloway, bailiff, for causing a nuisance in Cottleville Terrace by placing m the street furniture and effects he had taken from a house there. The owner of the articles, an evicted tenant, had' already been convicted ujider the city bylaws for failing to remove the obstruction. Mr. Stour, S.M., dismissed the charge against the bailiff, following a precedent set by an English Court, but expressed the opinion that the law should be altered to give the bailiff protection. Mr. A. R. Cooper, who appeared for the city council, said that the prosecution had been brought as a test case, lhe authorities on the legal position were vague. There had been only two previous cases of the sort and neither of them had been reported in the law reports, inc bailiff executed an eviction warrant on January 22. putting the things from the house bn the footpath and speaking to the tenant. The tenant said the things were not worth removing and they remained on the path an appreciable time, the council finally having to shift tliem. Mr. Stout said the position was very unsatisfactory. One would have thought that the Department of Justice would have cleared the matter up by obtaining legislation. It could be done simplj. Tfie case was one in a thousand; the reason why the things remained m the street that they were a lot of rubbish. Mr. Cooper pointed out that if such an obstruction remained overnight and somebody had an accident the bailiff might be defendant in an action for damages. He contended, first, that bailiff was not compelled to remove goods from a house, and secondly if he did remoie them he was bound to remove them to a reasonable distance. Mr Cooper quoted references to the two Previous eases from a textbook. In one the bailiff was fined for obstructing a highway. In the other the conviction of a bailiff was quashed by a court which held tlie opinion, that the bailiff might reasonably believe in the circumstances that he had given the goods into the possession of their owner and was not liable to remove them The magistrate held that in the case before him the goods had been gn en into tlie possession of the owner by the bailiff He said that where a bailiff had to "ive vacant possession of a dwelling, and” that seemed to be the only kind of possession it was reasonable to give, the bailiff should be protected by giving notice to the owner of the goods and the police when he put them out on the street. As there seemed to be some doubt about it it was reasonable that the bailiff be protected by a regulation. Dr. N. A. Foden, who appeared for the bailiff, said he would convey his Worship’s opinion to the Department of Justice.