ALLEGED PILLAGE OF GOODS: CLAIM FAILS

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 February 1948, Page 9

ALLEGED PILLAGE OF GOODS: CLAIM FAILS

(P.A.) INVERCARGILL, Feb. 4. A decision of importance to importers of goods who may have claims against the Railway Department for damages arising out of the loss or pillage of goods while they are in the custody of the department v v r as given in a reserved judgment delivered by Mr R. C. Abernethy, S.M., today, in the Magistrate’s Court, Invercargill. The case was one in which M. Henderson, Ltd., claimed £2O 19s damages from the Crown for goods lost, stolen, or pillaged while in transit by rail from Bluff to Invercargill. The Magistrate non-suited the suppliant on the ground of insufficient evidence. The goods were landed from the Waitaki at Bluff in October, 1946, and in support of the claim and to prove that the goods were in the case from which it was alleged they were missing, the suppliant produced a clean invoice and bill of lading. The Magistrate held that the clean invoice was not sufficient to prove that the goods were in the case, and that the bill of lading could not be used in support of the claim against the department, but only against the shipping company. “To succeed in a claim of this sort, the suppliant has to show that the goods were in the case when it was landed from the ship, and that pillage took place while the goods were in the custody of the department,” the Magistrate added. “As the clean invoice cannot be accepted as evidence that the goods were in the case When it was landed from the ship, this might appear to place an almost insuperable burden of proof on the suppliant. Unfortunately it does, but there it is. “There is no evidence that the missing goods were in the case when it was landed, because the evidence of the invoice cannot be accepted. I am unable to find that evidence meets the situation. The invoice is not prime, facie evidence that the goods were in the case, and the bill of lading is not admissible as evidence.”