SUPREME COURT.

Evening Post, Volume XLII, Issue 126, 24 November 1891, Page 2

SUPREME COURT.

CIVIL SITTINGS. Thib Dat. (Before His Honour the Chief Justice and & Jury.) WACKEOW V. TAIT AND PRIEST. This is a case in which William Henry Wackrow claims .£2OO damages for alleged false imprisonment. The defendants are Bobert Tait and John Priest, and it is alleged that on the sth October last they caused the plaintiff to be arrested on a charge of stealing three planks of timber, the Justice of the Peace, before whom he was tried, afterwards dismissing the case. The defendants filed a statement in which they pleaded that in laying the charge they did so without malice and in the bonafida belief that they were discharging a public duty* Mr. Bunny appears for the plaintiff and Mr. Gully for defendants. Mr. J. E. Cochran was chosen foreman of the jury. The plaintiff is a young man who follows the occupation of a farmer in the Aketawa Valley, Upper Hutt district, and the defendants reside about 50 yards from his place. Defendants were engaged early laat month in building a public bridge over the river, and it is alleged that they caused him to be arrested for stealing three planks. Tho plaintiff, when charged with taking them away, admitted that be had done so, bnt pleaded that he had bought them from Mr. Whiteman, a gawmiller in the district. The defendants, on tho other hand, alleged that Mr. Frederick Lindsell, an employe of Mr. "Wniteman, had given the timber to them some timo before. The plaintiff was brought before a Justice of tho Peace at the Lower Hutt, when Mr. Whiteman gave evidence that he had fold the timber to the plaintiff, and that LimKell had no authority to jrfve it to the defendants. On this evidence his Worship di>~ miased the case, and plaintiff now broughc aq action to recover damages for false, im. ■

prisonmont. Mr. Bunny, in opening tho oase for tho plaintiff, Raid that ho should bo ablo to show that the defendants had taken ?ho action against plaintiff from vindictive feelings, in consequence of tho plaintiff having complained about tho trespass of thoir cattle. After somo ovidonoo had been tnken, Mr. (U'lly announced that tho caso had been Hcttlod, the plaintiff having accepted -630 in satisfaction of his claim, without coats.