JUDGMENT IN RECENT CLAIM FOR MONEY

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 September 1949, Page 4

JUDGMENT IN RECENT CLAIM FOR MONEY

“I have seldom heard a case where I liked the evidence less. One side of it beyond any doubt is deliberate lying, arid the \yhole of it drips with malice.” This comment is contained in the judgment given by Mr Rex C. Abernethy, S.M., in the case w&ere John Griffin, as plaintiff, claimed from Arthur Beban the sum of £250 as the balance owing (after payment on account of £5O on October 27, 1943) of a loan of £3OO made to Beban on December 27, 1938. Mr Abernethy gave judgment for the defendant, with costs and witnesses’ expenses to be fixed by the Registrar. The claim was heard at Greymouth on September 7, and the decision reserved. Basis Of Claim “A cheque for £3OO made out by Griffin’s son, Patrick, and signed by Griffin sen., was handed by the latter to Beban on December 27, 1938, the Griffins say as a loan solicited by Beban to pay his income tax; Beban says as a fee agreed upon b,y Griffin sen., and himself for Beban’s cooperating with the plaintiff in interesting two Cabinet Ministers in saving Griffin’s company, the New Zealand Cement Pipe and Products (West Coast) Limited, from the extinction which threatened it should the powerful Hume Pipe Company, Aust., Ltd., secure a licence enabling it to compete with Griffin’s company on the West Coast, and, in blocking that licence,” states the Magistrate in his judgment. A cheque for £5O had been paid by Beban to Griffin on October 27, 1943, Griffin saying, as part-payment of the alleged loan, in a Greymouth hotel upon receipt then and there by Beban of a large win from a bookmaker, Beban stating as payment made for two cases of whisky sold by the plaintiff to the defendant in a Greymouth hotel bar—incidentally an. illegal sale of liquor, continued Mr Abernethy. “Unfavourable View” “I have seldom heard a case where I liked the evidence less. One side of it beyond any doubt is deliberate lying, and the whole of it drips with malice. I take a completely unfavourable view of the evidence of the plaintiff, though I am bound to say that the defendant was not wholly frank or comfortable under cross-examin-ation,’ and that, had Beban been suing today, upon the evidence of today, for the £3OO as promised for his ‘co-operation,’ I should non-suit him. I should do that, not because he did nothing to help block the licence of the Hume Pipe Company —he did do something—but because it is not proved out of the malicious and conflicting mouths of the two Griffin brothers, or out of any records that Beban could produce, that the plaintiff Griffin agreed to pay Beban £3OO, and that the company knew of it, and engaged Beban, and reimbursed -the plaintiff for his advance on the company’s behalf -of £3OO to-Beban. “It was a matter apparently of life' or death' for Griffin’s company to block the Hume Pipe Company’s licence, but not one word of Beban’s engagement appears in the company’s records or accounts. It could be—it might be—the truth;, but there is insufficient evidence to support it. Conflict Of Evidence “On the other hand, in view of the conflict of evidence and the unreliability of the plaintiff’s evidence, I am unable to accept, either, that the plaintiff’s case is proved, or, that after all these years, as between two men who were friends hand-in-glove up to October, 1946, but since then have been bitter enemies, this claim has been brought with any bona tides. “The balance, if not the whole of the truth, lies with Beban, and for whatever reason he came by the £3OO from Griffin I am convinced that the plaintiff has' produced. no evidence which justifies me in say- ! ing that Griffin shall have it back. 1 “It is proper to say that I absolve the witnesses, Gutberlet, McGlashan, Neville, McGuinness, Sweetman, and the Hon. John Ryall of any mala tides in their evidence,” concluded Mr Abernethy.