AGENTS OR COMMON CARRIERS?

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 139, 10 December 1919, Page 6

AGENTS OR COMMON CARRIERS?

AN UNUSUAL CIVIL ACTION.

A civil action characterised by quite unusual features was heard by Mr. W. G. Riddell, S.M., at the Magistrate's Court this morning, when the "A.W.R." Milking Machine Company, Ltd., of Stratford, proceeded against the New Zealand Express Company, Ltd., to recover a sum of £33 Is 6d, the value of a quantity of drawn brass tubing. The statement of claim set forth that on Ist May, 1919, the plaintiffs instructed! the defendants by letter to ship by the first steamer the goods named in the claim from Wellington to a Christchurch firm. The instructions were accepted by the defendant company, and, on or about 9th May a portion of the goods were placedl on the- steamer Queen of the South. On her voyage to the South Island, the vessel went ashore in a fog at Cape Campbell, and the goods were lost. The plaintiffs therefore claimed that the Express Company had failed to carry out the contract undertaken, and sought to recover the value of the goods lost. The defendant company admitted the facts as stated, but denied liability, on the ground that they were forwarding agents only, and not common carriers, and as such were absolved from liability. No evidence was called, but the case was, argued at length by Mr. T. Neave, for the plaintiff, and Mr. Morrison, for tho defendant.

Decision was reserved,