LIBEL AND SLANDER

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 37, 12 August 1930, Page 10

LIBEL AND SLANDER

DAMAGES AWARDED

"QUARTERLY DIVIDENDS"

AGAIN

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) • DUNEDIN, This Day. Damages totalling £513 were awarded in the Supreme Court in a ease in j which Daniel Moir, an engineer, proceeded against Quarterly Dividends, I Ltd., and National House .Purchase,, Ltd., on an action:for libel and slander.The statement of claim set out that in j November last David X. Johnston, local secretary of the companies for J New Zealand, was convicted at luvercargill of falso pretences, and at the trial the plaintiff was one- of four witnesses who gave important evidence for the prosecution. On 16th February William Taverner, acting with the authority of the defendant, falsely and maliciously published concerning the plaintiff, a circular letter in which he accused the plaintiff and three other witnesses of perjuring themselves at tho trial.

Other claims were made in respocfc of letters sent by. Taverner's wife to members of the scheme, accusing the plaintiff of embezzlement and theft and also in respect of a statement by Taverner at a meeting of subscribers that the plaintiff had been guilty of theft and perjury. The action was not defended, but mention was made of a letter in which Taverner stated that he had been called to England on account of an operation to his wife's teeth, and asking for an adjournment for a year. Counsel for tho plaintiff stated that the defendant companies were incorporated in England and carried on financial operations in New Zealand. Taverner came to Duuedin in July from Auckland, and endeavoured to force a settlement, but the plaintiff letased.