NATIVE LAND TIMBER

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 April 1937, Page 12

NATIVE LAND TIMBER

AN APPEAL ALLOWED.

[PER press association.]

WELLINGTON, April 26.

The Appeal Court gave judgment in the case of Tiki Paaka v. Adam Maclarn. The question in this case was whether, on its true construction, a deed executed by the parties established the relationship of principal and agent, or that of vendor and purchaser. The deed was entered into in July, 1935, and was made between certain natives, of whom the appellant was one, and the respondent, Maclarn, action having been taken last year to obtain an injunction restraining the respondent from entering on the natives’ land, and from sawing or cutting timber. The question arose as to the interpretation of the deed. Mr Justice Callan held that the deed was not. a sale of the standing timber by the native owners to the respondent, but that it created the relationship of principal and agent. In delivering judgment on appeal this morning the Chief Justice (Sir ■Michael Myers) said: “I find myself unable, on a careful examination of the document, to agree with the conclusion arrived at by the learned judge. In my opinion, on the true construction of the document, the relationship between the parties is that of vendor and purchaser of the standing timber on a royalty basis. Though the deed in some respects savours of the relationship of principal and agent, and in others of the relationship of vendor and purchaser, its provisions are conflicting in such manner, and to such an extent as to show that though called an agency agreement, it is not/ a bona fide agency agreement, but is merely a cloak to conceal a different transac-tion—-that is to say, the sale and purchase of the standing timber.” The appeal would be allowed, and the true relationship of the parties, as a matter of construction, was declared; to be that of vendor and purchaser, and the case was referred back to the Supreme Court, with an intimation accordingly. Mr .Justice Ostler, Mr Justice Smith, and Mr Justice Fair, in separate judgments, came to the same conclusion.