MORTGAGE DISCHARGE

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 December 1928, Page 3

MORTGAGE DISCHARGE

SEQUEL TO LAWYER’S FRAUD

(Per Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, Dec. 5.

Arising out of the defalcations of J. H. V. Mansill, an Auckland solicitor, now serving a sentence of imprisonment for theft and forgery, judgment was given by Mr. Justice Frazer in the Supreme Court, in a case in which John and William Andrews Kirkness sued Joseph George Sheldon for possession of the memorandum of a mortgage and memorandum of discharge. The plaintiffs paid to Mansill £450, which they had owed under a mortgage to the defendant. Mansill, instead of handing the money to defendant, misappropriated it. Defendant had signed a memorandum of discharge, which he left with Mansill whom he authorised to accept repayment, but biter he told Mansill not to accept repayment, and instructed him to cancel the memorandum of discharge. Mansill, in a breach of his instructions, did not cancel it, and when repayment was made produced it to William Kirkness.

The Judge said that Mansill obtained defendant’s signature to the memorani dum of discharge in such a manner as entitled plaintiffs to act on it, and defendant was accordingly estopoed from saying Mansill was not his solicitor when he produced the document to William Kirkness. Where one of two innocent persons had to suffer through fraud of a third, the loss must fall on him who by his indiscretion enabled the third person to commit fraud. Judgment was given for plaintiffs for possession of the memorandum of discharge and of the memorandum of mortgage, with costs as on the claim for £450.