WRONG HOUSE WRECKED

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 May 1930, Page 5

WRONG HOUSE WRECKED

OWNER AWARDED DAMAGES.

[per press association.]

WELLINGTON, May 8.

William Wilson Wood, merchant; and Edward Norman, labourer, were the defendants in the Magistrate’s Court in a case to-day in which William John Seater, merchant, claimed £250 for damage to a bouse, and £3 3/- architect’s fees for a report on the damage, and also £3O for loss of profits on the use of the house, which was partly demolished by Norman. The -story was that Wilson had a house to wreck, and sent Norman to do the job, but Norman tackled the wrong house. Wilson’s defence was that the damage did not take place in the course of Norman’s employment, and there was the suggestion that Norman did not act in good faith, but was vindictive against Wilson, counsel saying that there had been a quarrel, Wilson, rightly or wrongly, having made an accusation that certain wood sold from his yard had not been accounted for. Only when the house breakingoperations had been performed on the empty house at 13, Mortimer Terrace, last March, to the stage where the walls were pulled down, and the baths and other fittings taken out, was it discovered that the wrong house was being wrecked. “This is a very extraordinary case. The house happens to be the thirteenth, which is a proverbially unlucky number,” said the Magistrate, in giving judgment. There were many points of similarity between the two houses. He did not consider that negligence on the part of Norman had been established. Judgment would be entered for plaintiff against bo'h defendants with costs.