CLAIM FOR COMMISSION. A PROPERTY TRANSACTION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 46, 24 February 1908, Page 7

CLAIM FOR COMMISSION. A PROPERTY TRANSACTION.

Mr. Justice Button heard his last case from the Bench this morning, when the action, Smith v. Biss and others/ postponed from the 2lsi September on account of the illness and "subsequent decease of Mr, Hugh Gully, counsel for the defence, was resumed. Mr. Skerrett, K.C., and with him Mr. Johnston, appeared for tho plaintiff. Mr. H. D. Bell, K.C., and with him Mr. Tripp, represented tho defendants tMr. H. D. Eell took tho placo of the late Mr. Hu;jh Gully, who conducted the caso for the defence In its earlier Stages. Ihe plaintiff, William Wight Smith, of Wellington, land agent, sued the defendants, Augustus Samuel Biss, Wellington, accountant; Margin Chapman, Wellington, barrister-at-law ; and Lowther Duignan, of Wanganui, accountant, for tha sum cf £237 103. commission at the rate of 2^ per cent, on the sum of £9500, tho product of a sale of certain property in Willis-street, Wellington, alleged to havo been brought about by the agency of plaintiff. The circumstances of the case, as rehearsed by counsel, for the plaintiff, were that the defendant Bi^s in May, 1906, placed in the hands of tho plaintiff for sale the property at the corner of Willis-street and Mercer-streefc. at present occupied by Messrs Rash and Goodcr. The plaintiff offered the property to Frederick- Cooper, seedsman. The property was subsequently withdrawn, and then, according to the phintirl's statement, placed in his hands r.gr.in. Hp then offered the propcity to Mr. F. Coontr again, who, ns a result of the introduction, purchased it for tho sum of £9500 Evidence was called by Mr. Bell for the defehc-e. Frederick Pc'o-rt O^"-. seedr-rnn, gave evidence of beiig r.pnronched by the plaintiff with a \icw cf selling the property. Witness refu'ed to purchase. This was in 1906. Plaintiff never cominnnicatsd with witness again on ths subject. Thirteen months after, on 7th June, 1937, witness did buy tho property. He had negotiated directly with the defendants. Tha plaintiff approached him with regard to the purchase of tho proppiiy in the Heath Estate in March, 1907.