ABOUT A HOTEL

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 103, 3 May 1911, Page 10

ABOUT A HOTEL

' WAS A MISTAKE MADE? The Court of Appeal waa occupied yesterday afternoon by a case concerning the i purchase of a hotel at Foxton. The "parties were John Rainbow Stansell, of Shannon, auctioneer, appellant, and Frederick Spencer Easton, of Foxton, farmer, and Barbara Ellen Austin, of Foxton, executrix of the will of Herbert Austin, late of Foxton, flaxmiller, deceased, respondents. The original action was heard before Mr. Justice Cooper, who on 4th January, 1911, gave judgment for plaintiffs with costs. Defendant, now appellant, asked for a rehearing and for tho reversal or alteration of the judgment. In August, 1906, Stansell owned Whyte's Hotel, Foxton, and land on which it was situate. It was subject to a lease to A. J. Whyte aud others. On the 31st August Slansell agreed to sell the property to respondents for £6000, but it is alleged that reference to the sale of the land was omitted from the agreement by mistake. The purchase money was paid, but Stansell refused to transfer the land. Stansell, on the other hand, alleged that he never agreed to sell the respondents any land whatever, and that the land formed part of the premises only by virtue of a lease from A. C. Stansell. He therefore denied that reference to. the land was omitted from the agreement by mistake. He denied that he put ! respondent* in possession, and said that if they entered into possession they did so pursuant to the lease to one Thomas Hayward. He alleged further that respondents were precluded from setting up this^ause of action, in that appellant in ignorance of any claim by them mortfaged the land to the National Bank on rd March, 1909, for £500. His Honour decided that plaintiffs (now respondents) were entitled to recover £75 in respect of damages, and that they were entitled to have specific performance of the agreement. Leave Was' reserved to plaintiffs to move to enter judgment for £300, the value of the land, in the event of its appearing subsequently that the defendant had put it out _of his powetf to specifically par" form his agreement to transfer thedand. • 1 The appeal was on the grourid that the judgment was bad in law, in that (1) in the trial tho Judge misinterpreted the law in its application to the case, j (2) the Judge, without a jury, misinterpreted the evidence given at the trial, as is patent on the face of the judgment ; (3) the Judge admitted hearsay and other evidence which, should have been excluded, and which admission materially affected the result; (4) the Judge had no evidence to sustain his findings of fact. , Mr. H. D. Bell, K.C., with him Mr. A. S. Menteath, appeared for appellant,and Mp. C. H. Treadwell for respondents. The case had not concluded when the court rose.