BREACH OF PROMISE

Evening Star, Issue 23528, 18 March 1940, Page 3

BREACH OF PROMISE

DAMAGES AGAINST SHEEPFARMER SUPREME COURT DECISION CONTESTED [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, March IS. The Court of Appeal is hearing an appeal by York Hutchinson, of C home, a sheep farmer, against Catherine May Davis, of Gisborne, a widow. The case'was heard before Mr Justice Smith and a jury on May 31 and Juno 1 and 2 of last year, when £1,250 damages was awarded against the appellant for breach of promise of marriage. At the Conclusion of the case a motion that judgment he entered for the defendant was dismissed by the judge, and from this dismissal the present appeal was brought. _ The grounds advanced in support of the motion were that promises alleged hv the plaintiff were illegal and void, and that there was no corroboration for either promise as requred by the Evidence Act, 1908. In this Act there is a special section requiring corroboration in actions for breach of promise. ■ Counsel for the appellant, after reading the evidence given at _ the trial by the respondent, submitted that there was no evidence that the second promise alleged to have been made in November was a new and independent promise. The only reasonable inference from the evidence was that what then took place was, at the most, a purported ratification of the first promise, which was unquestionably illegal and void. He did not intend to proceed with the argument _ that there was no corroboration of this pro-

mise, and the appeal would be based on illegality. , . : - It is expected that the hearing »os this case will last two days.