COURT OF APPEAL.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 78, 4 April 1910, Page 8

COURT OF APPEAL.

♦ ALLEGED NEGLIGENCE. When the Couit of Appeal opened its sitliugH this morning, all the judges with the exception of his Honour Mr. Justice Dcnniston weie present. His Honour the Chief Justice presided. The first case heard was that of James Watt and Louis, solicitors, v. Aubrey Jame3 Willis. This was an appeal from the decision of Mr. Justice Edwards, delivered in Wanganui in September last. The appellants are a firm of solicitors carrying on business in Waiigauui. In the course of their duty they prepared a lease for the respondent. l'he lease was really a sub-lease, but, following a common practice, they did not show on its face that this was so. Respondent contracted to sell tho lease to one Miluer. The latter refused to carry out the contract, nnd appellants advised the respondent that he had a good case of action against Milner for specific performance. The action failed, because the lea«e which he had contracted to sell was really a sub-lease. Respondent sued the appellants in the Magistrate's Court, claiming damages for their nlleged negligence. The magistrate held appellants were negligent in preparing the lease on the giound that it should have shown on its face that it was a sublease. Appellants appealed from this decision, but Mr. Justice Edwards affirmed it not oih the ground taken by the Magistrate, but on the ground that in advising an action and not searching the title and discovering that the action was not maintainable, they had been guilty of regiigencc. From this decision the solicitor! now appealed. Mr. Chapman, K.C., with him Mr. Atkinson, appeared for appellants, and Mr. Hutchison for respondent. After hearing argument, the court renerved judgment.

There it a famine in the local ogg market to-day, as much a* 2s a dozen wholesale having been paid. The supplies «eem to be extraordinarily short of the demauds. Nelson aud Canterbury eggi are coming to hand in comparatively small lots only. So far as the immediate local egg production goes, it ii much below Wellington needs, whereat on some of the Nelion farms a* much ns 100 dozen a week are produced and are gathered twice a any. The eggs from IS'elron, Motueko, nnd Canterbury are said to be considered by the trade to be generally superior to those produced in the vicinity of Wellington as to both size and weight. Mr. Andrew Hamilton, vioe-pretklent of the Wellington Bowling Club, met with an accident on Friday night, which will confine him to his houte at Karori for rome days to come. As he w«* walking from the top of Aro-street with the object of catching the tram car for Karori at the tunnel, be tripped againet some earthwork alongside a cutting, and fell heavily to the ground. He was rendered in»cn<>ible for tome time, and wnx unconscious when picked up by a pedestrian, who took him home. Dr. Herbert was nummoned, and found that Mr. Hamilton's face was badly cut, and he had sustained a great rhock. He was aT>le to leave his bed for a little while to-day. On the application of Mr. C. P. Skerrett, K.C., who in appearing for the defendants in the action the Crown v. liowron Bros., Chrixtchurch, the heating of an application by defendants for an injunction seeking to restrain Magistrate Mr. Jl. W. Bishop, 8.M., from further proceeding with the case, was to-day 'set down for bearing at the present sittings of tbe Couit of Appeal. Messrs. Arthur Warburton and Co. advertise in this iuuo an amended selected lift of residential and other properties, including a subdiriaion block. At. 2 o'clock to-morrow Mr. \\ . L Robertson will *>ll household furniture by public auction in h>* room*. Manncr*-»trret At their roomi to-morrow Meairt W H. Morrah and Co. will hold an auction salt oi furoiturt, tht coate&ti of .eight rooju.